


No One Like You

by opti



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot Collection, Varies per chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-02-15 09:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 229
Words: 299,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2223822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opti/pseuds/opti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots and missing moments from the bewildering relationship of Andy Dwyer and April Ludgate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jerry and Porn

**Author's Note:**

> Heya, this is my first stab at P&R. I just love Andy/April, and there is a disturbing lack of stories on here and ffnet. Thanks for at least getting this far :)

If Andy even knew what the textbook definition was for an epiphany he wouldn’t be able to find it. Either way, something about the mixture of Pawnee air and shoe polish made his head feel weird – Ann had told him to stop ‘testing’ the polish for freshness by taking massive whiffs of the stuff but what did she know, she was a nurse – and today he pretty much had to get Kyle out of his chair as quickly as possible or his brain would melt. Part of him wanted to see it happen. He’s pretty sure April would think it was cool.

That was the thing, person, bothering him: April. His life was at a really strange place, and Andy didn’t know why he was so excited when she came in with coffee. It always made his headache feel a little better, and they usually went to mess with Jerry afterwards. But that wasn’t it, he thought. He liked hanging out with her and didn’t feel like he was constantly bombarded with schemes to get Ann to notice him again when they did goof around in the building.

April just didn’t care most of the time, and when she did care about something Andy was always surprised that it was something cool like jello shots, video games, or pig’s blood and not crap like Ann tried to get him into. He also loved it when she smiled. It didn’t happen often from what he could tell, but he _really_ liked when he made her laugh.

“I always wondered when we’d get kids’ sports programs back up and running,” Kyle said attempting to sound excited, “John always likes to do stuff outside. What if he…”

“What if you stopped talking for once Kyle?” Andy interrupted suddenly, slapping his rag on the man’s shoe.

“I-I think I’ve said more words in this sentence than I’ve ever said to you in my whole life,” the balding man muttered, awkwardly squinting and looking around for the cause of Andy’s outburst.

“Yeah, well you still talk too much,” Andy mulled it over and was going to explain that Kyle was stupid and boring, and no one even cared about his kids ( _apparently_ he has kids, and hopefully they’re his because Andy has his suspicions) but his head was starting to get a little fuzzy and weird again.

One day he’d figure out what the problem was. On top of the scary strong odor already in the air, it was probably because of that really dull, almost nondescript vanilla smell that always crept into the area when April was around. After living in a pit long enough, your nose can find just about any food and vanilla smelled just as strong as the waxy polish.

 When Andy told him, Ron said it was important for any man to know how to hunt and forage by his senses alone so he tried to sniff out different things. He could even identify most of the people at Parks and Rec. just by their smells, which was admittedly super weird. The one that always scared him was Tom: the man smelled like a mixture of a squirrel Andy once knew and a pile of soap left too long in the sun.

“Hey,” a low, clinically bored voice spoke from beside Andy interrupting his thoughts. “Jerry’s out for the rest of the day so we can, like, light his desk on fire or something.”

And just like that, he smiled. The uncalled for (but probably called for; Kyle sucked) explosion, something to do with Kyle and dodgeball or whatever, was about as far back in his mind as possible. Andy liked feeling like that, but he wasn’t one-hundred percent sure why. April was super cool and getting yelled at by Ron or Leslie was a lot better with her around. When she stopped by she would bring him coffee too, and that was pretty great.

“Okay, you’re done bud,” Andy smacked Kyle’s leg and motioned for him to move. “Scram.”

By this point he had stopped arguing and moved on with his day, hoping that no one would notice the caked wax on his right foot and the massive glaring shine from the left one. It didn’t matter how much he hoped, since everyone always did.

It was probably weird that Andy liked hanging out with April when she messed with Jerry, mostly because he looked at her a lot and didn’t stop when she turned back and caught him. Or when she called him creepy, which he probably deserved, but smiled her barely-there grin nonetheless and made a hasty excuse to bail out immediately.

“So, do you wanna move all of his keys again?” Andy asked excitedly. She had noticed that Jerry wasn’t a touch typist and he frequently looked down to his keyboard to finish his emails and reports, so they went in and switched every key around. They made sure not to spell anything out, or April did at least. Andy would never get tired of Jerry asking why there was a penis on his keyboard, and she wasn’t going to admit it but it was hilarious.

“No, that was stupid,” April answered, bouncing onto the backs of her heels and rocking back and forth. “We should put porn on his computer. I can photoshop his face on it.”

“Or put thumbtacks on his char! No wait, we tried that,” Andy scrunched up his face in pain. He’d forgotten about the prank last time, and those tacks didn’t want to come out of his butt at all. At first it was funny, except for the incredible shards of pain in his ass, but April insisted they immediately get to the hospital. That had made him stop laughing. She almost looked like she cared for a brief instant before making fun of him, breaking whatever strange tension there was for a second.

“Maybe we should do something that won’t put him in the hospital or get him fired,” April muttered, looking down at her sneakers solemnly before glancing back to him.

Andy couldn’t stop himself from laughing and it wasn’t too long before she joined in.

 

* * *

 

It was going to be _awesome_. April was a genius, he decided. She was a really cool genius who wasn’t a geek or too mean to him either, so that was even more awesome. Their timing couldn’t have been better - Tom had seen them fiddling around Jerry’s desk but ignored them, asking to talk to someone at SkyMall named Andreas about perfumes. Leslie was doing actual work somewhere else in the building, most likely making sure that the entire department had jobs, and Ron probably saw but never said anything.

There had been one part that wasn’t so awesome, or it was. Andy wasn’t sure. It was sweet but made his head hurt even more.

While April was busy moving the drawers of Jerry’s desk around, getting him to pull each one out and swap them, one of the drawers was a bit harder to move and was still struggling after a few minutes of hassle and jiggling.

“This drawer’s being stupid,” Andy said, straining to pull one of the grey metal boxes out.

“I don’t think drawers can be stupid,” April mumbled, trying to remain semi-quiet.

“Well, maybe this one’s a really smart drawer?” Pulling his hand off the handle, he looked at her with his neck craned in that inquisitive expression. “It’s so smart for a drawer, but I’m a dude so I’m way smarter than any drawer.”

Andy started pacing around the desk, staring down the middle-left box that was causing so many problems for them. It wasn’t long before the bad cop came out in him. And with Burt, came the cheap sunglasses he always kept in his pockets just for the occasion.

“You’ll open up eventually,” he said, “they always do.”

April had to hide her smile behind her hands if she wanted to at least look partially bored. She couldn’t help it, Andy – or Burt, at this point – was now interrogating a piece of office furniture with a completely serious expression on his face. If it went on long enough she might even _laugh_. Openly, and not at someone else’s expense. By now he was asking for contacts, for the information regarding a bunch of made up nonsense that sounded sorta professional and something a cop would say.

“All your little friends are already broken. They squealed,” Andy grunted at the grey and silver compartment. April snorted a bit, partially a laugh, and Andy took it in stride, “Yeah, how’s it feel being with the pigs now? Hm? Gonna break soon little piggy?”

Beyond the nonsensical question, it was still really funny to April, but then Ron walked out of his office.

“Andrew, can I ask you something?” The moustache was hiding the grimace underneath, but Andy still looked up at him brightly and immediately broke the persona of high-strung, hardcore FBI agent Burt Macklin. Despite this he was still wearing the dollar store shades.

“Sure, Ron,” he answered slowly.

“I’m just curious as to why you’re asking Jerry’s desk questions and calling it the world’s greatest delicacy,” Ron said brusquely.

April had to bite her bottom lip to stop her laughter, waiting for Andy to respond.

“We’re… um, putting a surprise in his desk to uh-y’know we’re gonna get him a birthday present…” he trailed off, “for his daughter’s… dog.”

“You’re going to get Jerry a birthday present,” Ron repeated, holding his hands out in front of him as if preparing to strangle someone, “for his daughter’s dog?”

“Yes,” April replied flatly, speaking up for Andy while he muttered a stream of nonsense words and ‘uhms’ and ‘ahhs.’

The challenge had been made, and April’s dead eyes and Ron’s hardened stare met for a solid twenty seconds before Andy felt awkward and wanted to leave. Probably forever, and preferably out of the country, as long as he never had to see these two stare at each other like they were going to suddenly engage in hand-to-hand combat or fall asleep.

“Well it’s actually a birthday present for Jerry’s daughter’s dog’s… um, birthday,” Andy broke the awkward silence, “Y’know, like a dog’s bi-“

“Why then, were you asking it questions?” Ron asked again.

“He’s obstructing justice,” April droned, pointing to Andy’s glasses. He turned back to her and smiled, and if he hadn’t been wearing sunglasses indoors he would have seen her face flush.

After that there was a second of silence and Ron blinked, looked up down between the desk and the two of them sitting there vandalizing perfectly good, well maintained government property. The bristles of his moustache turned up slightly and he nodded.

“Keep doing whatever it is you’re doing then,” Ron said as he turned around and made his way back into his office and shutting the door.

Whatever he had planned for them - some speech or reprimand - would have to wait for later it seemed. At least Jerry would be technically responsible because no one would rat them out. Now that that was over, Andy waited a few more seconds before April seemed to break from her trance after the mental sparring with Ron.

“I think I just heard it say something about you,” she said quickly while looking at Andy with a scandalized expression, “Burt, I think the suspect just said something about your mother.”

Andy broke out into a smile, forgetting about Ron and how he had quickly lost his cool. When he tripped over his words and sounded pretty dumb Ann would always call him stupid, which he thought was cute for a little bit. April never did that, and if she did it was hysterical to him. Then he dropped the smile and turned to the desk. Prepared to face it down, Andy grimaced because no one talked about Missy Macklin without walking out with a freshly minted black eye. Or a dent or broken lock or something. It wasn’t pretty however you looked at it. It was still super hard to pull it off without looking back at April and staring, probably saying something stupid, and then realizing he had a headache and his stomach felt weird again.

April, however, took to the task of making sure Jerry’s skin color was perfectly matching the fully nude body of some random porn actor that was now sitting spread eagle on his desktop. It always amused her that his password was never changed and she could get into his files so easily. Seriously, who uses their wife’s name for their work password? April didn’t even know that you could have your own password and was scrambling around one of the drawers for anything else to mess with when Andy accidentally bumped into the rolling desk chair and fell into the desk. Looking for some support his hand went into the opened desk and landed firmly down on April’s. Luckily his right hand grabbed the rest of the desk or she was pretty sure the whole thing would have been knocked over.

They were both technically adults, in theory, so touching hands shouldn’t have been a big deal or even awkward for more than a second. What were they, fourteen? Still, April thought that it felt really weird having Andy’s paw of a hand slam into hers and part of her wanted to wrap her fingers around his and kiss the shit out of him right there. But that sounded stupid after a second of really wanting to do it. Then again, it felt _weird_ in a cool way.

Quickly retracting her hand, April scooted back. There was a wry, little smile on her face the moment Andy turned around and she tried to shift to an uncomfortable frown. It was obvious that he caught it because his face was red and bright. She didn’t look back at him after that like she usually would have, instead turning the computer off and walking out of the Parks offices quickly.

“Oh, oh okay,” Andy muttered to himself. It _was_ pretty creepy, wasn’t it? He didn’t know if he wanted to hit himself for not talking to her or ignore it altogether. When he looked up from the desk he saw Ron staring at him through his office window, looking like if Andy walked in it would result in a small skirmish with any of the assorted weapons and whatever Ron could use as a makeshift weapon.

Ignoring the urge to go into Ron’s office and ask him about what’s even happening between him and April, Andy tried to focus on getting rid of his insane headache. It was like there was a thunderstorm in his brain, and it was all the friggin’ shoeshine’s fault.


	2. Anger and Rings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missing Moments from S3E7

April hadn’t ever been great at expressing herself to other people, and today was one of the hardest days for her to get over. Dating Andy had seemed like a cool idea from the start – he was fun and she didn’t hate hanging around with him otherwise – but planning ahead to a time where she would say that she loved him wasn’t exactly a priority. Stuff like this didn’t make any sense to her anyways; who the hell cared about people, let alone one person in particular? But she did, and it was _weird_. Things he said, his generally stupid ideas, and definitely making out were all pretty sweet. But April hated people; she hated the stupid ways they’d never stop talking. Except Andy, he talked loads but always made her laugh and somehow made her smile just by saying whatever words came to his mind. And she hated all the annoying little personal details they wanted to learn from her - except Andy, because they had a game where they would make fun of all the dumb things they had done in their lives. Andy won with the pit last time but there was a high school dance April never wanted to talk about ever again, except she wanted to share it with him.

It was like they clicked or whatever cliché was supposed to be applicable. They had fun, liked each other, and April didn’t want to leave after five minutes of dumb chit-chat. Mostly because there wasn’t any and they were usually busy egging a house or pantsing Jerry. Things were looking up, at least when she had the brilliant idea of telling him all of this.

“Hey, I love you,” April said quickly. She had tried to act nonchalant all day, wrestling with the thought that she loved someone and she wouldn’t follow that up with a quick ‘syke.’ Then Andy had said what could probably be considered the worst response possible.

She hated him. He was just like the rest, except worse. There had been a brief moment where she actually wanted to share something with him that was about both of them and not just a big joke. That’s why it horrified her to no end when April found herself questioning feelings about a big dumb oaf like Andy without even a hint of internal sarcasm. And it hurt, most of all. Harvest Festival was supposed to be a big day for the whole town, what with Li’l Sebastian and a Ferris wheel in Pawnee, and April had this grand idea that maybe, just maybe, it’d be a big day for them too.

“Dude, there’s a churro stand over there and some guy selling burritos too,” Andy interrupted her thoughts through a mouthful of bread. “Hey what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, everything’s awesome,” she replied sarcastically, donning a winning smile and wishing a bus would fall from the sky directly on Andy, “I’m just gonna go… over there, where you’re not.”

Leaving him to his food, she tried to work this through in her head. There was something there, feelings or whatever other gross thing possible, and April didn’t know how to deal with having this rejection. Andy had done everything to show that he felt the same way, hell she’s pretty sure when they did it the first time he said it ‘accidentally,’ and now here she had to _think_ about this. At least she was going to until Tom broke the news to her that Jerry had let the entire town’s favorite mini horse out, and there was no sign of him anywhere.

 

* * *

 

“Leslie, you gotta help me,” Andy pleaded, catching the woman before she would fly to the other end of the festival grounds and leave him without any support, “April’s mad and I don’t know why.”

“Andy, I’m busy. I’m sorry,” she responded, and Andy knew she was actually sorry. Any other day they would sit down, get funnel cake and waffles afterwards, and talk it through and come up with a solution.

“Yeah, I know… I just really don’t know what to do,” he muttered. “I’ve never wanted to make someone not mad at me before.”

“Last week you nailed Kyle’s shoes to a wall with April,” Ben said flatly as Andy tried to keep up with their brisk pace.

“And you guys almost got Jerry fired for porn – with his face on it,” Leslie said, noticeably irritated before recomposing herself. “By the way, good job on that one, totally a classic.”

Ben broke off from the two of them mumbling something about responsibility and classics, leaving Andy to try and match an unhindered Knope on her way to get something done. He’d never felt his heart go this fast in his entire life.

“Yeah, but Kyle and Jerry suck,” he managed to get out between heavy breaths, “and April’s the coolest.”

“Almost there Andy, just give it a bit and you’ll figure it out,” Leslie smiled and stopped to talk directly to Andy, “ I really have to make sure Joan and the rest of her sideshow keep their hands off this situation.”

He didn’t really know what she meant by him almost being there, and nothing she said had really helped. Except for the part where Leslie said their prank was a classic. That was so long ago he thought most people would have forgotten about it altogether except for April and him. This made Andy even more confused about the situation, especially because he thought they were going to go win April one of those stupidly big teddy bears and now they weren’t even near each other and he felt like she was super mad at him for something dumb. How was he supposed to know that saying ‘awesomesauce’ would make her so angry? The last time he called something she said awesomesauce they high-fived and made out in a parking lot. What was the big deal this time? He loved her, but why did she need to hear that? It was already pretty damn obvious, at least to him.

Struggling with the thoughts boiling his brain, Andy was glad to go searching for the missing horse. At least until April started being mean to him, ignoring him, and looked like she didn’t even want to tell him what he did wrong. Why wouldn’t anyone tell him?

 

* * *

 

“Stop talking,” April growled to a quiet Andy.

“I’m… not.” Andy answered, confused, “Oh, do you want to talk because this is super boring, and I was thinking that maybe we could figure out a way to get Li’l Sebastian and there’s this trap I thought of-“

Everything made her head hurt, especially when he wouldn’t stop his run-on sentences from going to a place where April wanted to forgive him. But no, that wasn’t going to happen. No amount of traps – regardless of possible human bloodshed, spikes, and/or flanges – could stop her from feeling like shit about the whole situation, and Andy was supposed to pay for making her feel that way. He was going to pay for making April feel anything at all, especially something so strongly for him.

“I’m gonna go look over here,” April interrupted. “You can go somewhere else if you want. Just don’t follow me.”

If she hadn’t been so mad at the moment, Andy’s sudden fallen face would have made the growing knot in her stomach tighten to a strangulating grasp. On top of that, there was a bubbling anger at someone that wasn’t refusing to reciprocate her feelings. April was furious at herself now, and she definitely didn’t understand that. It was almost like some part of her hated being mad at Andy.

Not knowing how to deal with that, she had a brilliant idea when passing the medical tent. If anyone knew how to handle this situation it certainly wasn’t Ann. Everything she said was useless and pretty much up for debate as to how closely it was related to the English language anyways. April just needed a pick-me-up and messing with Ann was probably number two or three on her shortlist. She waited at the entrance flap, hanging on a pole for a few seconds before working up the nerve to pop her head inside.

“Ann, can I… talk to you?” April said pretending to sound serious, fumbling for something to use against her, “It’s about your Chlamydia test, we’ve found signs of Her-“

“Okay, okay, okay let’s not do this here, then,” the effervescent nurse responded while trying to drown out April.

Rushing outside, Ann pushed her from the entrance of the tent with an alarming strength that might have sent April falling if she hadn’t been leaning on one of the support poles anyways. She had to keep a reference on that; Ann had crazy nurse muscles.

“Listen, you can’t just say stuff like that okay?” Ann said quickly, “I get it, you’re still mad but there’s literally nothing to be mad at anymore and-“

“Okay, we’re never going to be friends,” April intoned slowly, interrupting the hasty nurse.

“All right… I think that’d be best for everyone’s sanity,” Ann replied, to which April nodded vigorously, “but what are you doing here?”

This was stupid, and she knew it. It was like every idiot girl she knew in high school that made April want to ask Ron politely for a gun just to ‘visit some old friends’ as she put it. Here she was, going back on her original intent of screwing up Ann’s day to ask for help.

“God, what am I doing…?” April groaned, hoping for that mythical bus to appear and run her over, “Fine, I told Andy I love him and he said that was awesomesauce. I’m mad at him and he’s-“

“Got no idea, right?” Ann finished the sentence curtly, nodding and folding her arms. “Yeah, I did the same thing a few years ago and I think it took him a week and no spaghetti to realize what I was mad about.”

April sighed in response; this wasn’t what she needed to hear. She wanted Ann to commiserate and call Andy an idiot, maybe say something stupid that April could pounce on and humiliate her for weeks about.

“Ugh, whatever this was dumb and a terrible idea,” April said, walking away. “Thanks for nothing, Ann!”

She was just happy that Ann didn’t walk after her, even if she had some choice words to yell behind her back, because by now she was worried there might actually be emotion on her face from this whole situation. April loved that large, dim-witted guy but she wanted to hate him so much just like she did everyone else. This was going to be harder than she thought possible.

 

* * *

 

Andy passed three different stalls selling bratwurst, two of which had spinning meat cones that would have made Ron weep on the spot, and not one of them even interested him. This was worse than anything he had ever gone through with Ann and processing that made him realize something. He really did love April; tiny, crazy, genius April who the city of Pawnee should have probably recognized as the least trustworthy to handle a firearm right next to Andy. They fit together as two pieces of an insane, edgework puzzle that had been lit on fire several times, somehow making it out of each fire with a shiny new bit that unraveled a greater picture of their lives.

Then the power went out, the Ferris wheel stopped, and Ron basically saved his skin. Just like that puzzle they were meant to come back from this stronger.

 

* * *

 

Hours later, Andy and April had helped the others finish the maze and find that damnably lovable horse. It had been a pretty quiet four hours, with neither of them talking but holding hands and, when she complained about all this walking, all Andy did was crouch and motion to her. Piggyback rides were awesome, and he knew that on top of listening to her complaints and trying to help she loved getting them. When he was tired of running around with her on his back, mostly from running since she weighed almost nothing, they went back to their leisurely stroll looking for their goal. Whatever it was supposed to be that night, April was pretty sure she had already scored hard.

Even after that, they were pretty quiet. They hadn’t really done that before, mostly sticking to pranks and kissing until their lips and basically everything else hurt, and it felt good. April liked this different, and she was sure that the only reason it was anything remotely enjoyable was because Andy was with her.

“I like this,” April mumbled, swinging Andy’s hand as they looked between stalks and at crossroads, “it’s different.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” he answered with a smile on his face so wide that no mythical bus or mysterious house fire could stop. “You’re cool, the coolest. I love you.”

“You can stop saying it, jeez,” April groaned, and against every instinct in her body had actually blushed in response, “I love you, too.”

Then the silence fell, but neither of their smiles did. This night, this different, _was_ something special for them – in their own, crazy way that could only come from Andy and April. Talking about serious, adult subjects always made her want to vomit spontaneously but April liked it with him. Andy couldn’t complain much either, especially with the woman he walked around a fairground and _thought_ about for more than ten minutes.

“You know, I doubt anyone’s gonna walk past here for a bit,” with a gleam in her eyes that made Andy grin in response, April motioned to the stalks around them.

“That would be awesome,” he said casually. “I love hide and seek.”

Standing there, hand held mid-motion, she didn’t know whether to laugh or make fun of him. She wanted to screw him in a cornfield, and his response was to play hide and seek. April couldn’t help herself when she fell over laughing so hard that her gut might actually rebel and explode from the sudden use.

“Was it something I said?” Andy asked innocently.

 

* * *

 

“Andy,” April begged at around five o’clock in the morning, “wake up, we have to talk.”

He shrugged her off at first, mumbling something and rolling around on the mattress still sitting on the floor of Burly’s spare room. It only took a few smacks for him to get the idea and struggle out of his dream.

“What’s up, babe?” Andy mumbled in a sleep-riddled slur.

“I wanna talk about today,” she said pulling her knees to her chest and biting on her bottom lip in concentration. “It’s important.”

“All right,” sitting up and groggily rubbing at his eyes, Andy attempted to stay at full attention for her. “What’s up?”

“I’m… well, I’m… uh,” sighing, she continued, “I’m sorry for blowing up over nothing today.”

“What?” Andy asked, incredulous, “April that was totally worth blowing up about. I was being a jerk.”

“No, I should have known what you meant,” she said, reaching out a hand to grab his arm and pull them together. “I know you love me, it’s just weird for me to say stuff like this to people.”

Andy pulled her deeper in, barely holding back from crushing her small body into his. He didn’t understand exactly why, but her telling him that – something he had partially figured out anyways – felt almost as special as the rest of the night. After a few seconds of silence, he could feel her legs wrap around his and that telltale giggle. But first, he wanted to tell _her_ something.

“I wanna let you know… I have no idea how I will, but I wanna let you know,” Andy interrupted, “that I love you and you mean literally everything to me.”

If anything her attempts were getting harder to turn down, but he still wanted to say something. There had to be something. Suddenly, it came to him. He knew what he had to do. Reaching around a small pile of candy around the makeshift bed, he felt a small plastic hook and pushed April away from him gently.

“Wow, rude,” April joked, ready to move back in for the kill.

“No, babe, stop,” Andy insisted. His tone made her move to turn on a lamp sitting on the floor sideways, revealing the misshapen ring in his hand. A half-eaten cherry ring pop was in his hands.

“Uhh… I don’t think that’s safe,” she said warily.

“I have to ask you something,” Andy replied, a large amount of heat suddenly coming up to his cheeks, “and I don’t want you to laugh or anything. Just answer me… April Ludgate, will you marry me?”

Staring at a partially eaten candy ring, April had no idea how to react to the information at hand. Instead of thinking about it, she let her natural apathy take over and attempt to take it in stride. She let a few seconds pass, expecting a full minute to go by but before even ten seconds had gone she was pushing herself on top of Andy and biting at his lip.

“Fine,” she finally answered after a minute or two.

“Awesome,” Andy said, pulling her back in for a kiss.

April decided that maybe this was a terrible idea. Maybe everything today had been a terrible idea, even telling Andy her feelings. But then she looked at the beautiful yellow plastic on her hand and couldn’t stifle a laugh. The ring was a fake and they lived in squalor, but they were _they_. And, to April, that felt better than anything else in her life had up to that point.

Well, almost everything.


	3. Tears and Photographs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With S6E18 I kinda got carried away with one line in particular: "...and then we wouldn't be married, and I don't like thinking about that."

 

Talking to Leslie wasn't always Andy's favorite pastime. She was easily the third coolest person he knew and one of the smartest by a long shot, but if she was yelling at him or telling him to do something Andy wanted to get as far away from her as possible. The only reason he didn't drop the call was because it had to do with April. At the government thrown prom she'd been acting weird, talking about how they wouldn't be married if they were in high school or something just as stupid, and Leslie was chewing his ear off about it. Apparently Leslie was pretty damn observant too.

"Andy," she half-shouted, waking him up from his thoughts, "are you even listening to me? This is important, and you know it."

"Oh come on Leslie," he pouted, "April's just being weird again. I told her she was being dumb at the prom and we had fun."

"You really should talk to her and hash things out!" Leslie yelled through the static of the call.

"We talk all the time," he replied, feeling more confused than ever. "Like, literally every day."

"Ugh," she groaned, "Andy, your wife is feeling insecure. Go talk to her."

"That can't be possible, we had Ron change the batteries in that fire alarm last week," he answered incredulously.

There was a moment of silence where Andy swore that he heard Leslie mumble something about a 'dysfunctional nightmare' but he didn't feel like remembering those definitions. He was getting tired of walking around the building looking for April anyways, so he sat down and waited for the rest of the tirade. There were only a few places she would go, and the Parks office definitely wasn't it. She must have been at the shelter, he decided.

"Andy, you sweet innocent child," she muttered, before continuing with a gentler tone. "This is about April feeling like there's a chance that you're… y'know, done with her."

"What?" Andy laughed in response. "That is the dumbest thing I've heard today, and I think about a lot of stuff."

"Seriously Andy, talk to her," she finished, hanging up on him.

This was crazy. After getting kicked out of prom, and the subsequent failed laking of the limousine, that night had been awesome. They got drunk, shooed Orin out from beneath their bed, and decided that worrying about anything like this was stupid and not worth it. Andy kept the rest of the night in a special memory bank for other occasions. The after-party was always the best part of prom, anyways. That was supposed to be the end of it, but then Leslie called him in the middle of the day with all of this stuff about having to talk to his wife and everything came back up. It was all so confusing.

Life was great for them, and Andy never really thought about it beyond that. They had a house, they had Champion, and every day was like another fun adventure for them to get through. He loved it, and loved her and spending every day around her. Being across an ocean had been hell mostly because he only talked to her and saw her through Skype calls. In the middle of his ruminations, Ron walked into the offices. Seeing him sitting down, contemplative, the older man instantly went into his office to try and hide from whatever 'emotional' stuff Andy was dealing with. He wasn't going to bother Ron anyways – he needed to find April and talk.

She wasn't a person with a naturally positive disposition and Andy knew that, but when he was around her the last thing he wanted was for her to be in anything resembling a bad mood. Any time she was enjoying herself, it was really hard for him to not be. He loved the way her smile kind of snuck its way on her face, and the hitching chuckle that she called a laugh. It was all the most awesome stuff in his life smashed into one – he loved seeing April happy, and living with a depressed April wasn't doing him any favors. It was definitely a failure on his part.

It was going to turn out pretty easy, seeing as he was the only with the car and she pretty much had to be working at the shelter. Andy had only ever seen her walk through Pawnee three or four times in his life, and it still bewildered him. Walking into a small office where she worked he found an empty desk and no snarky note telling people to never come back, or anything else that would have her touch to it.

"Hey," he asked a lady sitting at the front desk, "is April Ludgate out for lunch or something?"

"No she left for the day," the woman answered roughly. "She might be at the Parks offices."

Why would she leave the only sort of work that she actually, if only marginally, enjoyed? Andy's head hurt even more. Getting back into his car, he tried to make a mental checklist of where she would go and finally made the decision to check home. It took him an hour or so to figure it out, but that was almost a new record.

 

* * *

 

She thought all of it was over. It had been weeks thinking like this, and after that fake prom and seeing Andy melt back into his high school persona, the crippling thoughts had been dragged back to the surface. April even felt better that night, especially after getting kicked out. Then when they woke up, it hit her again and again. Every day it was like a niggling doubt, almost like fear and if there was anything she hated more than people it was feeling afraid of something so obviously stupid. They were  _married_ and if the last week was any indication, Andy was certainly not bored of her. Despite that, she laid down on the couch and bit at the sleeve of her sweater in contemplation.

No matter what she told herself, or what happened between them, this felt wrong and almost like they were on timer until everything boiled over and one of them forgot why they were even in the relationship. The thought alone made her want to cry. Feeling so  _weak_ and powerless was the worst thing April had ever considered in their relationship, and even the doubts made so little sense to her. Still the idea gnawed at her and made everything feel strange and almost floating, like some kind of horrible dream she wanted to get drawn out of.

"This is stupid," she mumbled to herself, wiping at her eyes and sitting up.

Why couldn't it just be water under the bridge for them and they could go back to making out, dressing Champion up as every one of the Golden era monsters, and hosting summertime Halloween parties? But they did that anyways, and even then she couldn't get the idea of it not being enough out of her head. She loved him, he loved her and that should have been enough. She was sure it had to be enough, but there it was nonetheless, that horrifying doubt. Interrupting her thoughts, the sounds of a car pulling into the driveway broke into the house and she was relieved to see Andy walk up to the front door through the window.

"Hey, honey?" Andy asked into the house, "You here?"

"Living room," she responded, waiting for the sped-up footsteps and excited yelling. But they didn't come.

Again she wanted to curl up in a ball and forget everything, hoping that Andy would curl up next to her and not say what she was sure was coming. Every single day they lived together was the same thing. When he came home later than her: he would call out, she would answer, and then he would basically nosedive into the couch or bed after her. They had a pattern, and when it was broken things were never looking up.

"Hey, uhh…" Andy started, scratching the back of his head, "can we talk?"

"Yeah, sure," she answered, moving to lay her head down on the armrest and focus on Andy's words.

He sat down next to her and remained silent and motionless for a moment, his eyes darting around the room and to her every few seconds awkwardly. After a few more seconds of silence he groaned and spoke up.

"Come here," he motioned towards himself. "Come on, honey."

April slinked over to him and he pulled her onto his lap, wrapping his arm around her. This was really serious, she decided, and he was trying to let her off as easily as possible. She wanted to smack herself for these thoughts, but everything was starting to add up in some really crazy way. When she rested her head on his shoulder he let his head drop and they sat like that for a few moments without saying anything. She lived for this, no matter what anyone else saw in their relationship. The days where they hung out and played pranks on the city of Pawnee were great, they really were, but the reason she always missed Andy when he was away was for times like this.

Nothing was better than curling up and just sitting there, talking once every few minutes if that, holding each other and wanting nothing more and nothing less from each other. Neither of them knew this was going to be their favorite time together, since both of them preferred being covered in egg yolks and fake blood to sitting around acting like an old married couple, but at the end of the day there was little that April wanted more than to just be there with him. And she knew for a fact he felt the same way, but in spite of that she still wondered when he would drop the horrible bomb on her.

"I was talking to Leslie and, uh…" Andy interrupted quickly, "we should talk, right? Like, it's, um, a good thing we talk so much and…"

"Andy, I know what you're trying to say," April looked up to him and fuck if there wasn't a little bit of a tear welling in her eyes, "and I understand."

"What?" he asked, sounding surprised.

"Yeah," she answered, pushing her head deeper into him in the hopes that she could burn this moment into her memory for the rest of her life, "I do, and it's okay. I'm just as surprised this lasted as long."

There was a rough movement and April was wrenched from that incredible position, and left standing with Andy staring directly at her looking all over her face. After what felt like an eternity of scrutiny, he pulled her into a back-breaking hug which just sent those tears streaming down her face even faster.

"April, don't," Andy said, and there was a slight quiver and seriousness in his voice that struck her by surprise. "What happened that made you start thinking like that?"

"Babe, you know as much as I do that this," she made a gesture between the two of them, "was just dumb kids being dumb. Leslie said it herself."

"Yeah, and it's still cool, right?" Andy asked, and the redness around his eyes and nose was obvious now.

"It's just that, y'know…" April sniffed, and Andy gripped her shoulders even harder, "I don't even know. I started having these thoughts one day and then we went to that stupid prom, and then I thought about us not being married and it was so stupid, but…"

She had intended to keep going, trying to remember everything that her brain had been turning over and over, but had been interrupted by a rough pair of lips crashing down on hers. Andy had pulled them together and was trying to silence her with a kiss, and for a moment she felt everything wash away again. Then the flood of terrible thoughts and the situation came crashing down on her again.

"April, we're awesome together," he finally said, "and you know that. Talk to me, come on."

"Why?" April asked, looking up at him as she cried more than she ever had in front of him. Generally they both hated crying, and there hadn't ever really been a scenario for them both to be doing it like there was now. Even so, she didn't bother wiping her tears away and she could tell Andy was fighting his damndest despite the few of his own that escaped.

"Why what?" he answered, face struggling to keep straight and not contort with more tears.

"I don't even know… I just can't stop thinking about you getting bored and wanting to leave, and having more fun without me, finding some super cool chick that isn't me…" she trailed off, sitting back down and playing with the sleeves of her sweatshirt.

Andy crouched down to get himself at eye level with her and the look in his eyes, the determination, made April's heart feel like a thundering jackhammer. Something was broken in there, devoid of the childish glee and near lack of consideration that they usually housed. He grabbed her hand for a moment and squeezed, fingers rubbing over the cheap looking wedding band on hers before letting go and looking back to her eyes, that serious glint still there.

"Listen," he demanded, holding her face in his hands, "you are literally the best thing that has ever happened to me. If I hadn't met you I'd probably still be living in a pit eating tomatoes every day."

Despite the growing fear in the back of her head, April chuckled lightly and continued listening to his piece. She wanted to say that he was literally the best thing to happen to her, but the words were choking.

"And you know what, I can prove it." Andy got up to his feet and pulled her with him. She hesitated for a moment and before she could react he had picked her up and dragged her into the bedroom. He sat her down on the bed and pulled out a stack of squares, laying them onto a table next to their bed.

"Here," he pointed to a bunch of unframed pictures they were meaning to get around to, "this one's from when you told me to chase my dream and go see the Grand Canyon. And I went, with  _you_."

She picked up the picture and looked at the two of them smiling in front of the large crater. It really was an awesome day. Andy was flitting through the photos incredibly quickly, and the amazing thing was that he seemed to be actually processing each and every single one. It was almost as if this wasn't the first time he'd done this.

Speechless, she grabbed his hand and squeezed as hard as she could. There were times she wondered if Andy even had a brain that functioned but then he went and showed her things like this. It made her realize that even if he wasn't as showy about it that he could be one of the sweetest, most thoughtful people on the planet. If it was anyone else but Andy that would have made her sick to the stomach but for whatever reason, he was the exception. Andy smiled and returned the squeeze, picking up another photo and laughing, cycling through the memories.

"And this one," he said gesturing to another. "Remember when we went with Leslie and everyone after Ann and Chris left, we went to go get breakfast…"

"And we gave each other cool whipped cream moustaches," she laughed, looking over the picture of Andy with a cream beard and April sporting a fu manchu. "Leslie was too busy laughing at us to cry over Ann anymore."

By now they were snuggled up together, going through the pile of pictures – the collection of  _their_ memories – and laughing at each one. Every piece of their life, from Champion's homecoming party to Andy's broken nose, was recorded here and waiting to be hung up to be put up in  _their_ house. With each little piece, that horrible droning in her head melted away.

"April, look at this one," Andy interrupted, showing her a picture of their wedding with Chris frozen in a gyration that made her neck hurt, "look at me, look how happy I am."

In the picture Andy was finishing up playing the song he wrote for her, looking at April, and the largest smile anyone could ever have was across his face. There had been no one else in April's life that smiled this much that didn't make her want to drive an axe through their skull. Like most other things, Andy was an exception that she was more than glad to make.

"It's because I just married you," Andy explained, rubbing April's shoulders while they scanned their assortment of pictures and captured memories, "and I was the happiest guy in the universe, and I still am."

"I'm sorry," April apologized, putting her head in her hand, "this was so stupid, and it's so obvious and, ugh…"

She broke off into a laugh, and Andy joined in. Of course this was such a stupid thing for her to be thinking, but something had made it impossible to even talk with Andy about. But now, there they were, sitting down and looking through their own version of a photo album, talking about their problems.

"Nah, it's cool," Andy said. "I mean, I've thought about it too."

"What?" April asked, confused at the idea of Andy thinking anything like this about her. That wasn't how this was supposed to work – she was supposed to be the one worried about their relationship and not  _him_.

"See what I mean, it's dumb!" he exploded, shaking his head. "Let's just go back to being awesome together, okay?"

April nodded her head and leaned in to kiss Andy. Maybe she would keep having those thoughts, and maybe one day they would overcome her, but she decided that if they talked about it and acted like – and the idea made her want to wretch – adults about it, there wasn't a whole lot that could get in the way of their lives.

"Yeah, that sounds awesome," she answered after breaking away from him. April lifted her hand in the air and Andy immediately high-fived her, leaving his hand there for a moment longer and intertwining their fingers before going back in for another kiss. April concluded that she had to have been crazy to ever worry about this at all and knew that if it ever came up again, they were only one pile of mismanaged memories away from erasing those doubts.


	4. Changes and Kids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I 've got a potentially terrible idea. I would love to get one of these out a day, almost like my attempt to write drabbles once a day months ago, but my creative energy is super limited. If you guys get any ideas for stuff you'd like to see head over to my askbox [on tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) and drop some ideas in there. I'll let them accumulate until either I'm ready to start this endeavor or I realize there isn't enough interest to warrant the attempt. I'm going to keep writing either way, but I always enjoy the challenge of the One-A-Day.

 

* * *

 

April had no idea why they volunteered. In hindsight, the idea was terrible. She already had to deal with a gigantic toddler on a day-to-day basis, and adding three more to the mix might have been the tipping point into actual madness. There had never been so much poop in her house, so many crying faces, and garbled nonsense that they were supposed to somehow interpret as language and this was only the first day. Leslie and Ben were out on the road, heading out to size up a possible National Park in the Midwest, and April and Andy had made the great snap play of suggesting they look after the kids. For most of the first year no one had ever dared to ask if they needed help mostly from the fear of Leslie taking a sizable chunk out of their head for even suggesting it. Now, however, work and parenting were starting to clash in a way that everyone could see was affecting them. So they had three kids at their house for two whole days.

"Hey, don't put that in your mouth!" April demanded, taking Champion's bone away from one of the kids.

She didn't know at what point things changed. Only a handful of years back, it would have been hilarious to watch that child eat a rawhide bone and realize the horrible mistake he'd made. Now, she was carrying him away and patting his back in the hope that she had made the right call. Somehow April had coaxed the others into taking a nap, and so far that seemed to be the best plan – divide and conquer.

"Ugh," she stared at her phone, hoping that time would magically shift forward another half an hour.

Andy was going to be late only because she had trusted him with Leslie's list of required items for taking care of her children for more than twenty minutes. In her time at the Parks department, April had seen some serious binders but the Leslie Knope Child Care Requirements and Checklist™ binder was truly a masterpiece of mindful insanity. Paring it down to the essentials, or a small novella, Andy was trying his best to gather a few things for the night. There had been a communal agreement to 'pass off' the little ones over a few days, and Ron was set to take them after April and Andy had their shift. Preoccupying her mind elsewhere, it surprised her to hear Andy pull into the driveway after what felt like an infinite span of walking around with her eyes on a mostly stationary child.

"Oh man," Andy complained as he dropped a bag on the ground, leaving it behind to set the other four on the kitchen table, "there is so much cool stuff at that bed and toilet and whatever place."

"Why is there so much stuff?" She asked, looking curiously at a massive assortment of children's food, diapers, blankets that they already had, and other odds and ends that would have racked up a bill April didn't want anything to do with.

"Yeah, about that," he said, scratching the back of his head and picking up a blue rattle. "I saw this cool rattle, and then I remembered to get food but it tasted really bad so I got them the good fake applesauce stuff, but don't worry I called Leslie and she said it was fine for them to have it."

April squinted at her husband, letting his run-on sentences continue to flow as she considered him.

"She said they never got it because it was too expensive to buy all the time, but that stuff," he punctuated with tapping a package of 'food' that vaguely resembled a sauce, "is super delicious. And I noticed they sit around with their blankets and bite on them and get 'em all gross, so I called Leslie and she said it was fine but I still got them more blankets because I know I hate when I drool in my sleep, and-"

Before he drained his face entirely of blood in the middle of marking off every one of his purchases, April pushed the baby food and clothes out of his hands and pulled him down to kiss him quickly on the lips. Not saying another word, they got to work taking out Andy's overwhelming debt in childcare form, and the rest of their 'shift' April spent the time wondering when things had changed. She liked this change.

 

* * *

 

 

Now all of them were walking and, much to Champion and April's chagrin, they wanted to be everywhere in the house. They had already taken the precaution of keeping every door closed off, some simply closed and others gated off with those weird little baby prisons, but some of these had proven useless against the tallest of the triplets, Chris. He was the quickest to pick up new things Andy figured out, mostly from playing memory with him and having to switch games because he had gotten bored of knowing exactly where every picture was, and noticed he watched the way he twisted a doorknob with specific intent. Despite that, he made nothing of it. At least until he found a toddler walking around a bathroom with wet tiling and a porcelain bathtub waiting to accept the child's forehead slamming into the edge.

"No, no," Andy reached out and picked the kid up, trying to keep a loose enough grip like Ben had told him, "we don't play around in the bathroom. Well, you don't."

They mutually decided to keep the bathroom door locked despite the pain in the ass it turned out to be, especially when the keys went missing and the same scenario played out once again. Andy found himself accidentally getting a little too heated over the situation, yelling at a small child for his curiosity. He was learning to use the bathroom properly, but Andy still hated having all those sharp edges so easily available and waiting to be fallen onto.

"He just kinda looked at me like this," he explained later, making a face to April. "Do you think he hates me?"

"No, babe, you did the right thing," April said, rubbing his shoulder and trying to calm him down. "He hasn't played around in there for a few hours."

She had never seen Andy so worked up about something without it involving burritos and/or a stinkbomb, so they made a compromise to go out and buy tons of rugs and carpets and wherever he felt it wasn't safe they would put them down. In a week's time any tile flooring was soon replaced with an emblazoned rug or two; or three. April had many of the same worries, in fact she had the idea to lock some of the rooms before the situation even came to it, but this was beginning to be a fun experiment with Andy so she let him take the wheel on a few of the easily fixed concerns. Andy wasn't the only one making emergency calls to Leslie, and her questions were a bit more future-oriented than April would ever admit to anyone besides her husband and Leslie.

 

* * *

 

 

Time had been too tight for the two of them, with Andy taking on more and more responsibilities as director for charitable events and April pouring more and more time into the shelter, so the kids were separated during their babysitting for the first time. April and Andy took Chris, who was somehow still growing seemingly every day, since April loved playing board games with him – and later she would ruminate on how disgusting that would have sounded to her in her teens – and Andy found out that, for a five year old, the kid had a cannon. Even if he did stand only twelve or so feet away, every toss of the little plastic baseball threw him for a loop.

"Babe, you gotta look at this!" Andy screamed for her from the backyard, "Chris almost took my arm off!"

April put down a pile of mostly indiscernible and, more importantly, super boring documents to take a break. What little of a backyard they had was taken up every day of that week with Andy and Chris wrestling, playing catch, and messing around with the toys that the boy had taken with him from home. Literally every single day April would finish some boring report for the shelter and look out to see the two of them running in circles, screaming to high heaven about absolutely nothing, and let the smile stick to her face for the rest of the day. The duties had shifted somewhere along the line, with April seemingly losing her part and Andy stepping up to the plate and, again, she liked it. Something about seeing Andy running around with a kid in their house felt right, and the thought stuck as she walked out to see what the fuss was about.

"Uncle Andy showed me how to 'fro real fast," Chris explained, his slight lisp making the 'th' and 's' sounds a struggle. April loved it, and couldn't help but grin at his attempts to sound it out anyways.

"Nah, it's all natural talent," Andy chuckled, moving over to tousle the kid's hair. "Whaddya say, break time?"

Chris nodded vigorously, and Andy brought both of his hands up for the inevitable high five. The two of them raced inside with April trailing behind, laughing to herself. Nothing she could say would take them off the subject of baseball, something she knew Andy wasn't even really that fond of in comparison to football, so she let them at it while Andy cooked up his 'world famous grilled cheese' and kept their conversation going for the rest of the night.

Hours later when Chris had fallen asleep and they found themselves curled up on the couch staring at the TV, April figured that they had somehow fallen into some semblance of adulthood and it was way cooler than her childhood self could account for. A few minutes of silence passed but the thought was eating away at her, so April had to speak up.

"You're so good with him Andy," she blurted out, smiling at the mental picture of the two of them running in circles, "with Chris, y'know."

"I never knew kids could be so cool," Andy answered with a chuckle, "and he likes you too."

"Yeah, but he always asks for us because of you," April explained, taking his hand and pushing her fingers between his and squeezing, "and that's awesome."

Andy laughed and looked down at her, both of them grinning awkwardly. She was reminded of the first few times they went out and the same strange charge she got from exchanges like this. Just like then, an idea started to form in her head and before she let every eventuality present itself she made a leap of faith.

"Are we ever gonna… y'know," April muttered, playing with Andy's fingers, "do you ever think about, like, what if-"

"Kids?" Andy asked, hopeful. She rolled in her lips in response and nodded, searching his face for a response. After a few seconds of silence, a small pit of worry opened up and she had to ask.

"I mean, if you think it'd be-" April started.

"What happened to the creepy Transylvanians?" Andy interrupted with an expression of honest confusion on his face.

"Romanians," she corrected him with a laugh, "and I'm serious. Do you ever think about it?"

In spite of everything that she witnessed him do for the kids there was still a minor worry that maybe he wasn't really ready or willing. Andy scratched his head and sat further back in the couch, pulling her with him as he sank. By now she was half-sitting up in his lap and Andy was rubbing his face in serious contemplation.

"Yeah, I guess," he answered, clearly unsure of where this was heading. "I figured you wanted to wait or something."

"I did, at first," April said slowly, "but the last couple years of this, and watching Leslie and Ben's kids I think… I think I want to have kids."

There were several incredible grins over the span of their marriage that April had etched into her mind: their wedding, the day they brought Champion home, and now this. Her requirements weren't that strict. The only thing that mattered, above all else, was that when she looked at Andy smiling like that the first reaction she had was to return the smile, feel every bone in her body charge with energy, and forget everything else but them. Andy's response to her statement definitely qualified for one of those grins. Locking her arms around the back of his neck she leaned in for a kiss and he was too happy to oblige.

"Dude, that's-" Andy began.

"No," April warned him jokingly before laughing.

"Yeah, let's do it," he rectified his previous statement. "I wanna make, like, thirty babies with you."

"Let's start with one," she said, resting her head on his shoulder and letting the idea wash over her.


	5. Tests and Labor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, let's lighten the mood today shall we? This was requested by and-im-stefon-meyers on tumblr as "pregnancy/labor."
> 
> If you want to get in on the action and drop a request, send something [into my tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) and I'll put it down in the 'ole idea bin. There's no actual bin, but I'm tellin' ya - it's pretty much, y'know, not full.

"Yes, holy shit… we did it!" Andy screamed triumphant, raising the white and pink stick in the air like a victory banner.

"Andy I did pee on that," April said, scrunching her nose up at him. His smile deflated and he threw it on the ground. "Besides, it could still be wrong."

While Andy wiped his hands off on April's shirt, he gave her a sympathetic hug and took to shaking his hands spasmodically while talking.

"Babe, if I know anything about biology-"

"Which you don't," April finished.

"Well if I'm even remotely qualified to be a doctor-" he started again.

"You're not," she told him.

"Okay, but if you trust me," Andy corrected, accepting the begrudged smile as an answer, "and if I'm half the dad I want to be, then it doesn't matter when it happens. It'll happen, and it's gonna be so friggin'  _awesome_."

April nodded her head and smiled, deciding to let Andy's advice rule her brain for a while. Maybe this one would be defective, but what did that matter? If that was the case, that meant they got to keep trying. At this point they had already passed the thirty babies quota and came up short, so how could more sex hurt?

 

* * *

 

Before the big baby decision nothing was worse to April than having to stand up, look at more than four to five people, and talk to them about something. Somehow this was even lower on the list of things to do. It only hit her when she called everyone into the Parks offices for an emergency meeting, making sure to get Leslie in as well, how awful talking to people about  _this_ would be. If April announced this without Leslie present Pawnee would likely burn to the ground then be rebuilt from scratch, and April would probably get yelled at. She wished Andy wasn't trying to seal an important deal with Kernston's and the charity for low-income mothers. That sentence alone made the decision really easy in the end, but April explaining it to people? No thanks.

"Okay so," April began, pacing between the permits counter and the center of the room, "I've called everyone that matters in here to tell you something really important."

"Aww, that's sweet. I didn't know you cared," Terry (April thought that was his current name but couldn't remember) spoke up, surprised.

"Who let you in?" April demanded, throwing her hands up in disgust.

"Well, I'll let myself out," Terry mused happily. Leslie gave him a staggering glare that left him sitting down however.

"If it's this important he can stay," she explained, "just for the purposes of records."

"Ugh, fine," April groaned along with a few others. "Don't ruin this, Terry."

"All right," she took a deep breath and went back to pacing. After stopping herself in front of them, April let everything out in an incredibly quick torrent of words, "Look, Andy and I are having a baby and we went to go see a doctor or something, he said there was a stupid little person in my body, and now we're gonna be parents, like, early next year."

There was a collective moment of silence as the blast of information washed over everyone listening. April dreaded the wait and had a fleeting thought to run out of the room and leave town, probably to go change her name and remarry Andy under an assumed identity. Part of her liked that idea way better, but then the feeling was broken when Tom looked at something in the corner of the room and gave a gigantic smile, raising his hands and whooping. Leslie stood up slowly and walked over to April, mumbling a garbled string of nonsense words and crying.

"Leslie, ew no," April tried to keep her arms dead straight but gave in to the hug anyways.

"I knew it," Leslie said through her sniffles and otherwise incoherent rambling. "You're going to be an amazing, frightening, beautiful mother and Ben and I will help you figure everything out and we can watch him, or her, whenever you want and..."

Donna shook her head and laughed while Leslie trailed off with her head now firmly stuck to April's shoulder. It was probably the most sensible response. Jerry/Larry/Terry/whoever clapped his hands over his mouth and said something stupid. April had already forgotten it one syllable into the words mostly because of the woman strangling her and muttering incomplete sentences. Leslie's deathgrip was only loosened when Ron walked over to the pair of them. His face was stoic and his hands were still in the khaki pants he was wearing.

"Congratulations," he finally said, raising his hand for her to shake it. April instantly burst into tears.

"You always know what not to say Ron," she said, throwing her arms around him for a hug. Luckily no one could see his face or there would be no end to the comments as his moustache raised into a smile and he returned the hug, albeit quickly.

"Have you started thinking of names yet?" Tom asked, jumping out of his chair. "Lemme drop one on you – Thomas J. Ludgate-Dwyer."

"What's the J. stand for?" Donna asked, already prepared and preemptively typing something into her phone.

"J-E-A-N, hyphen, to the Raplhi- _oooooh_ ," a voice wailed from the doors of the offices, and suddenly Jean-Ralphio was inside throwing his arms over every available shoulder.

"Why is the Jewish hedgehog in this building?" Ron asked, turning around and resuming his gruff exterior.

"I have been formally requested to discuss my  _tax fru-haud_ ," he crooned, holding his hands up to his mouth before returning to the voice of a normal human, "and Tom tweeted it out, sounded like a classy operation."

"Sure, why not," April shrugged, "but on one condition: I own you like a slave now. Bow to me, slave."

She pointed at Jean-Ralphio whose smile had withered away. April's open-eyed glare and slight grin of her own made him look around the room for support, only to find people nodding sadly in agreement. He slinked backwards before turning around into a full-on sprint out of the room.

"Probably a good call," Tom admitted, snapping his fingers. April was just disappointed her slave had run off, but all in all the news seemed to go over pretty well.

 

* * *

 

They said she'd be glowing, and that sunshine would radiate out of her butt. Everything would be  _fine_. It would  _literally_ be the best idea they'd ever had and both of them would come out better people for it, but April could only focus on the blinding pain in her ankles and the nauseating feeling rumbling in her stomach. Regret wasn't even a ten-thousandth the strength of word she would have used to describe the anger over her decision, but April had fought too long by this point to give up. Also it would be technically illegal and unsafe to do anything about it.

"This is terrible," April yelled to no one other than her ballooning stomach, "and I hate you, you unborn hellkite."

Taking Leslie's kids every once and a while made everything seem so easy but even this one discomfort – a horrible, physically crippling discomfort – made everything feel like another dumb mistake in a long line of stupid decisions. Outside looking in Ben had said but what did he know, and Leslie told her that it was just a part of the journey and something else stupid that sounded like a Chris Traeger branded therapy session. Now she was hungry, another weird trait she figured was just a dumb myth or whatever, and the craving for a plethora of awful combinations was too strong sometimes. If her head and legs didn't feel like they were about dissolve from pain then it would have been pretty funny. She had been pacing in the kitchen for far too long and sitting down sounded boring, so April kept on walking back and forth doing absolutely nothing waiting for Andy to confirm her requests.

"Uhh, babe," Andy interrupted, "did you want it bread, pickles, salsa, salami, bread? Or…"

"No," April groaned, "bread, pickles, salsa, fluff, more salsa, chips, salami, then no bread."

"Okay, fluff's new," Andy said, writing on his palm.

"Ugh, nevermind," she said, feeling gross simply thinking about the nightmare sandwich. "Just get me some tuna salad."

"You hate tuna salad," he answered, confused.

"Less talking, more tuna," April screamed.

Andy nodded and ran out of the house, desperately trying to satiate the needs of his quite pregnant wife. He decided that when he told people about this and had Ben write his biography (One Crime at a Time: The Burt Macklin Story) this part would be written like a horror story and the chapter would be named 'Terror at the Dwyer-Ludgate Household.' By then he'd convince her that Ludgate-Dwyer sounded way less cool.

He didn't have to deal with all of her problems so he just kept his mouth shut most of the time and did as he was told, occasionally making a suggestion at great personal risk. On one fateful night, the mention of the word pizza led to Andy returning with a jar of marshmallow fluff and a cheese and anchovies pizza. April took one bite out of the putrid Frankenpizza, made a face, and then immediately vomited all over the remains. Andy stopped recommending things after that and left it up to her. As Andy opened the car door his phone vibrated loudly with his text alert – it was from April.

_dont forget the fluff_

Why was it always the fluff, and why did she have to eat an entire jar? Andy left the thought in his head, treasuring his jaw far too much to risk anything. It didn't matter that when he returned with a container of JJ's tuna salad special and a jar of sugary slime April looked at both and threw them at him. Her response to her own actions was to immediately apologize and start crying, something that Andy never got used to  _at all_. After she cried or exploded in fury it never took too long for her to calm down and then they would be stuck together in bed, Andy trying to give her plenty of space but refusing to keep less than an arm from draping over her.

 

* * *

 

"Why did I ever let you do this to me?" April screamed from the cot, holding Andy's hand in an iron grip. He knew better than to answer.

Both of them were aware how long labor could take, and especially April who kept repeating the words 'seventy-two hours' out loud between breaths, but Andy tried his best to remain stoic about everything. He had read a few pages of those books then got bored – no pictures – and what he did read was super scary, but mostly the part about how long it could take and some of the risks the baby and mother would have. April spent all of her available time drowning herself in those books so she obviously knew, but they never talked about it before. Andy hoped it would be an in-and-out if only because he was sure one doctor would slip up and somehow a sharp object would find its way into April's hands and at that point it would be anyone's game.

"When the hell is this party starting," April demanded, squeezing harder on Andy's hand. "This sludge-baby wants out, and his lease is about fucking  _up_!"

"We have to wait for specific contraction timings," one nurse explained.

"Oh God," she replied, slamming her head back into the pillow. "It's the end, it's all over. Janet and April are going down in one poop-filled blaze of glory today. Don't let them know this is how it ended, Andy."

Andy had no idea how to respond while keeping his head intact, so he kept his grip on her hand. After a while April started to roll her shoulders uncomfortably and, seeing a brief opportunity, he moved his hands over her shoulders and tried to give her the patented Dwyer massage. Normally she hated them and it just led to a hose fight in the backyard, but her standards must have been seriously lowered because April stopped her ravings and took a few deeper breaths. It was barely any time at all like this before she contorted her face in agony over another contraction.

"Hand, Dwyer!" April yelled, putting her hand in the air. He clamped on immediately, hoping he had done something right earlier.

"How's the mother?" a man removing a white coat asked as he walked in. Andy kept his mouth shut, eyes wide and trying to ready himself for whatever was about to happen in front of his eyes. He had made sure to ignore those pictures.

"There's literally, ugh, hellspawn in my body and it wants out," April responded. Her grip loosened a bit, and Andy had a brief moment where he thought he could get something in between her rants.

"Hey, uh, do you want anything, babe?" He asked tentatively, wincing in preparation.

"Unless you've got an air conditioner you want to turn on in front of my face, no," she quipped.

"Andy," the doctor addressed him. "Go wet that rag over there, and make sure to use lukewarm water. Pat her forehead down with it."

He nodded and let April try and pull a metal bar from the bed instead of his arm from the socket for a second while he ran to do what the doctor said. After he had done what he was told Andy returned to his post and started dabbing some of the liquid on his wife's head. The litany of curses that was already unleashed started to slow down, and with that she took more deep breaths.

"Okay, that feels pretty good," April admitted, sighing and relaxing her grip ever so slightly. "But now I feel sweaty and weird."

"Oh, I got some of those little ice cube things before we came in," Andy said gleefully, picking up a small bowl from a pan and handing her a few of them.

She stuck one in her mouth and took another deep breath. Somehow things seemed to be falling back from the dreadful edge of April trying to get up out of bed, grabbing a pen or toothpick, and stabbing the nearest human being – likely Andy – in an attempt to run from labor. The doctor nodded to him and not knowing what that meant he just nodded back, trying to feed his wife ice chips until that was inevitably the wrong idea. Then it started happening and Andy was sure his wrist would never be the same – there was an awful lot of heavy breathing, some sights that Andy wished wouldn't be stored in his brain forever, and a few screams and agonized yells filling the room.

Then there she was; the sludge-baby, newborn hellkite, or whatever name April had given to her when all she wanted to do was take all of April's food and beat the shit out of her every day. The midwife told them that the nurses and orderlies had tried their best to keep a small blonde woman from destroying half the hospital in her attempt to get in, so they had only a handful of minutes alone.

"Whoa," Andy breathed, not really sure how to handle the situation in front of him. "That's, like, our kid."

"Yeah, I know," April replied, equally speechless. She was too busy staring at the little red face in her arms to really think of anything intelligent to say. "I'm really trying to hate her, but I can't."

"Can I, uh…?" Andy motioned to the little bundle.

April nodded, her tired eyes still bright from looking at this little creature she had birthed. His face was perpetually split by a smile and when the little mess of nasty skin was put in his arms, he let go. Andy didn't like crying an awful lot, mostly because it made him look like an idiot when his face balled up and his eyes got all squinty, but he didn't have any other response for this moment. Nothing in his life had really prepared him for it.

"Andy," April said, chuckling and rolling her lips in an attempt to keep any tears back, "you gotta stop being all emotional, dude."

"Oh right, yeah," he laughed and blinked rapidly. "I just can't… I don't really know; I don't want to put her down."

"Well the midwife," April pointed to the lady walking towards them, "is gonna have to take her for a bit."

Andy nodded. He already knew that and thought he had prepared for it, but didn't want to give up the angry looking bundle of weird looking skin and grossly matted specks of hair. Reluctantly he passed the baby onto the rather demanding woman and had to sit down next to April's bed, waiting for the eventual storm that was upon them. The minor squeal from one of the doorways was all they needed to hear to ready themselves, and soon Leslie was in the room running to the front of the bed and looking like she'd gotten into a fight with a raccoon. Her eyes darted between the incredibly tired April and Andy, who was sure his legs were never going to stop moving from all the excitement.

"Okay Leslie, just... bring it on," April waved towards herself, waiting for the still silent woman to let loose.

"I… hm, this is the most perfect moment ever," she finally said.

"You realize we have kids," an exhausted Ben reminded her from behind.

"Not for us," Leslie responded, jabbing him in the side harder than was probably necessary. Things had gotten hairy out there. "Today's the day we see the new Ludgate-Dwyer family start, and I'm almost afraid for the future of Pawnee but things always seem to work out for you two."

"Leslie, stop," April said, wiping at her eyes. "I'm gonna cry all over this disgusting, beautiful gown."

She finally broke the distance and moved over to hug the two of them, and Ben shook Andy's hand – or tried to before Andy shook his head and took him up in a massive hug. After being let down Ben held his chest and had to take a few deep breaths before congratulating the two of them.

"So, what's her name?" Ben asked, still coughing intermittently.

"Roberta," they said in unison before April finished, "because my grandmother was the only cool person in my family."

"That's so… you," Leslie finished, shaking her head and laughing.

"Also, uh, we want to ask you guys something," Andy started, scratching his head. "We were wondering if you guys, y'know you and Ben, would mind being the godparents and, uh-"

Leslie didn't give him time to finish whatever weird tangent he was guaranteed to fall into because she had grabbed Andy and pulled him into another hug.

"Guys, that's so thoughtful," Ben started.

"Ugh, I don't want it to be him. Can't Orin and that Food 'n Stuff cashier do it?" April complained, glaring at Ben before giving him a slight smile when she was sure no one had been looking.

"Well, we know Chris and Ann already asked you guys but it's more of a metaphor-"

"It's symbolic," April corrected.

"Yeah, so symbology and whatever. But really guys, it'd be so cool," Andy pleaded. "Leslie you're like the coolest person that isn't April and Ben's the best dad, so whaddya say?"

"Thanks, Andy," Ben said, tilting his head and wondering where that had come from. Andy responded by patting him on the back and smiling.

"Of course we will," Leslie shouted, almost like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Oh, and we're not gonna shirk on that babysitting promise. You guys saved us from going completely insane, so if you ever need anything."

"Yeah, and Jerry said he and Gayle would love to watch her whenever, y'know," Ben spoke up.

The room quieted and the other three looked at him in disgust. Andy shook his head in disappointment, April was considering how lucky he was that the last thing she wanted to do was stand up, and Leslie gave Ben a glare that he'd obviously seen before.

"What, he's got a great family," Ben tried.

"I'd rather a pack of wild coyotes raise my child than Terry," April said flatly.

"That'd actually be pretty cool," Andy agreed, rubbing his chin before high-fiving her.

The rest of the night people cycled in and out. Leslie and Ben took their leave when little Roberta was brought back to them, cleaned and declared perfectly healthy if a little underweight. Ben had to pry her away from the baby. When Ron and Diane found their way there, April swore that Ron said something in gibberish babytalk to their child before they had to awkwardly make their exit. Apparently Zoe had found an old man's oxygen tank and was having a minor escapade with her sister down the halls, leaving John behind. After that they hadn't expected anyone to come, and they were right. Donna and Tom texted Andy and April, both of them congratulating the new parents in their own way. Donna said that she wished it were a boy, since by the time he was legal Donna would be on the top of her game. Tom offered them a 10% discount at his flourishing bistro, calling it a "Friends with Families" discount.

On their way back home, Andy kept remarking that he was the luckiest guy there ever was until he realized that both of his girls had fallen asleep. He smiled in the sweet silence as they pulled into the driveway, knowing that waking either of them would result in equal amounts of vomiting and hatred from the both of them. Looking at April, mouth open and snoring loudly, and little Roberta all squished up in her clothes Andy knew that it was going to be worth it.


	6. Doubts and Greg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the show goes on (you can help your regularly scheduled one-shot production by hitting me up with a request wherever an inbox is available). I thought about reversing the roles of Ch. 3 and really liked the idea of Andy asking Leslie for advice again. Mostly because I love their relationship.
> 
> Tell me if you liked it. Or don't, whatever!

Andy's pretty happy in his marriage, but sometimes he has to wonder if he's the only one. A few years had made reading April pretty easy for the most part and yet he didn't really know if she was happy. When they dated everything was fun and games, marshmallow guns and pillow forts, but now they had  _bills_ and  _silverware_ and other gross, adult things. All of those were things that she vehemently fought against every step of the way, and part of Andy knew she was just being stubborn like only April could be but other times he felt like he was changing her in ways she didn't even want. Then he'd forget about all of that and they'd share a pizza over a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie that just hit streaming, make out over half of it, and spend the rest of the night either in bed or terrorizing the general populace of Pawnee.

Andy tried remembering that when he met April for lunch only to find her talking heatedly with the only person from the shelter she ever said anything favorable about. Most people she met there were categorized as either horrible excuses for people or human slime, but then there was Greg. Greg sounded like a superhero when Andy had to hear about him: he took Orin's strange animal obsession and squeezed all of the creepy out, only left with a classically handsome, short animal rights activist that made Andy feel confused about where he stood on the whole heterosexuality thing.

"Hey, babe," Andy spoke up, enunciating the second word much louder than necessary.

"Andy you're late," she complained, gesturing to the empty glasses and plates in front of the two already sitting down.

"April, Andy's  _just_ in time actually!" Greg said brightly, waving at him. Andy grunted and nodded but that didn't break his smile. He reminded Andy of Chris Traeger, but not in a fun way.

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about something super important," April said, nodding to Greg. "There's a big conference in Bloomington this weekend for the vet school, where they get these guest speakers to talk about potential job opportunities for graduates. We were invited."

Andy smiled and congratulated her, but Greg's hand was in the air and April turned to high-five him.

"That's awesome babe," he said after pulling her into a hug. "When are we leaving?"

"Oh, you don't have to go," she explained. "It'll be easier if it's just us, and don't you have that stupid weekend thing with the guy from Kerston's?"

That was probably one of the more adult things April had ever said to him. Andy had tried the whole Johnny Karate thing, but found that he couldn't do solely that and keep their lives together with some all right cash here and there. So, begrudgingly, he accepted a job offer from that super cool British guy he and Ben had met, Lord Fancypants or whatever. He even let Andy have the opportunity to be one of the Midwest representatives for his charity branch, something Andy found he really liked without the massive distance between him and April. And he had been trying to nail Kernston for months – for whatever reason the nipple kingdom wasn't all too willing to put their name brand seal on a charitable foundation. Somehow he had finally convinced the CFO to go on a work retreat full of golf and weird resorts where Andy could try and schmooze a few extra zeroes out of the company. It took him a second to realize that was the most adult thing he'd ever  _done_ let alone thought, but shook it out of his head when April snapped her fingers in front of his face to get his attention.

"I guess," he said slowly.

"It's a weekend, Andy," Greg said cheerfully, smacking Andy's knee playfully. "You can let April off the leash for a few days, right?"

"Yeah, it'll be fine," April said, challenging Andy to say anything. There wasn't much he was going to be able to say anyways – there wasn't any leash.

Andy nodded and left early, letting the two of them get back to planning their weekend. He gave April a brief peck on the cheek and turned around, feeling a strange weight in the back of his head. It was familiar but that feeling hadn't even bothered to show its face for years, and that was focused on someone else entirely. He hated that feeling and wanted to pretend like it wasn't even there, and that might have been a better play than before when he let it consume him but Andy had more at stake this time. As much as Greg was this perfect, super nice guy Andy never thought that the thing he'd feel towards him was  _jealousy_.

 

* * *

 

"Hey Leslie, it's me, uh, Andy. You know that though, I'm probably in your contacts. Listen, I need to ask you some stuff," Andy said, failing to figure out how to end his message. "It's about April. I understand if you're busy, or whatever. Thanks."

The moment Andy pressed 'end' there was a bright chirping and Leslie's face popped up on his screen. He didn't understand how she had time to listen to the message but smiled to himself and answered anyways. Leslie was so cool.

"Hey, Leslie?" Andy asked, a little shaky.

"Good day to call Andy," Leslie sounded exhausted on the other end and he felt bad for calling her out of the blue like this. "But I can cut out early. Meet me at JJ's in an hour."

"Sure," he answered. "Hey, thanks Leslie."

"No problem," and she hung up.

Leslie really was one of the best people Andy knew. He'd be lying if he hadn't discussed things with April who was fully against it at first but had started to warm up to the idea before Ben stepped in and ruined it for the three of them. But Andy liked Ben a lot and he seemed to make Leslie happy so he didn't really care that much. Suddenly reinvigorated, Andy walked down the street to JJ's to get an early start shoveling the all-day breakfast specials into his mouth. Leslie never let him pay for anything even when he never tried to. After he had gotten through the first plate, Leslie found her way to his table. Bags were forming under her eyes but they still had the same excited, ready and willing stare that never dropped. Her hair was a mess and she was lugging around a pile of binders that made Andy's shoulders hurt just looking at them.

"Okay," she sighed after finding her place sitting down. "I've got ten more minutes, then I have to be back from lunch."

"Cool… uh," Andy drifted, not sure how to broach the subject. Chewing a sausage, he started, "Um, how did you deal with Ben and that Washington campaign lady being so buddy buddy and working together and all that crap."

"I didn't have anything to deal with in Jen," she explained, shrugging. "They worked together, but I knew that Ben didn't really  _like_ her as a person. She just offered him a really good job, and so I had to support him."

"What if Ben actually liked her a lot, and always talked to you about her?" Andy asked, feeling queasy and putting his fork down. "Like, what do you do about that?"

"Sorry, what does this have to do with April?" Leslie had been rubbing at her eyes tiredly, but stopped and asked in a confused voice.

"Well this guy, Greg-"

"Oh, Greg!" she interrupted excitedly. "Greg's such a great guy. I met him when we did a survey of possible Wamapoke parks and he single handedly wrangled all of the raccoons out of one just down the street, he's so awesome. What about him?"

Andy groaned and put his head in his hands. This wasn't going as well as he was hoping.

"Leslie," he complained, "he  _is_ so awesome. April thinks so too…"

He quieted, picking at his food and dripping syrup over his somehow freshly ironed shirt – Leslie figured he just bought new ones constantly but had caught him ironing at a laundry mat one day, at which she couldn't help but cry – and Andy wanted Greg to just be super nice and  _not_ care about animals. That way April would hate him and he could stop feeling like shit about this. Leslie cocked her head, mouth slightly open and half-starting sentences before finally figuring out what she had been trying to say the whole time.

"Do you – you think… hm, you think April's cheating on you?" Leslie asked, ignoring the waffles that were laid in front of her despite that delicious aroma and mountain of cream. "Andy, are you serious?"

"I don't think she's cheating on me," Andy admitted, pushing his food away and towards Leslie.

"So what's the big deal with Greg?" she wondered, chewing through a waffle and picking up a leftover strip of bacon Andy had left behind.

"I think… well, I dunno," Andy shook his head and looked down to the floor. "I think April wants to leave me."

There was a short choking sound followed by a cough and when Andy looked up Leslie was patting her chest and trying to hold back a stream of rough coughs. Her eyes took on the quickly calculating glaze as she looked back and forth between something in front of her as if checking boxes and scratching off others. Andy tried doing that once but figured it was dumb because all he ended up doing was moving his eyes between April's boobs and he got super preoccupied after that. Crossing his arms uncomfortably he waited for Leslie to say something.

"It doesn't make sense, Andy," finally breaking the silence, Leslie shook her head. "You two are some of the strangest people I've ever met, and this  _is_  Pawnee, but you guys are like glue. I've never seen one of you mad at the other for more than a day or two. Why would you think that'd just stop?"

"Well, we've been doing all this really important, grown-up stuff lately," Andy scratched his head and continued. "She always hated all that, and she's been really weird the last couple days when she gets home. I think she's bored."

"She's worn-out from planning a work weekend while actually working and volunteering, Andy. Let me tell you from experience, April's not bored – she's tired," Leslie smiled, hoping her hit landed.

"Yeah, tired of me," Andy sulked, feeling no different from her words. Leslie probably knew what she was talking about, she usually did, but it still wasn't helping him at all.

"Okay then let me ask you this," Leslie said, straightening up and looking him straight in the eye," when April and Ben were in Washington did you feel like this?"

Andy laughed immediately. Now that was just crazy. April and  _Ben_? That was probably one of the dumbest things he'd ever heard. He voiced his opinion, making sure to throw in a part about Ben being awesome.

"April's so awesome but she's super weird sometimes," Andy started, not really sure what he was even trying to get across. "And I love that, y'know, but she always acts like she really doesn't care about stuff. Last couple of days I feel like she doesn't care about me anymore."

"Andy, just because April has a friend doesn't mean she wants to sleep with him," Leslie tried to calm him down, putting her hand on his and giving him a gentle squeeze.

"Right, feminism." Andy nodded seriously.

"Right…" she said slowly.

"I'm still confused," Andy admitted, shaking his head and rubbing his face. "Leslie, what am I supposed to do?"

"Andy, you're a giant child and with that comes the immaturity, thoughtlessness, and laziness of one," Leslie rambled off, and Andy wasn't sure if this was supposed to make him feel better. "But, you're also one of the sweetest people in the world, you'd do anything for those you love, and you're loyal almost to a fault. April knows that. That's why she loves you, and I don't think she's going to just throw that away because Greg likes possums more than you."

Andy couldn't help but return her smile. Still, something was unsettling him.

"You always know what to say, Leslie," he said. "But I still can't shake it, y'know? It's kind of annoying and shitty."

Leslie nodded knowingly and bit her lip in concentration. Andy pulled a piece of drying toast from his abandoned plate and ate it slowly, considering everything she had said. In reality, it didn't make a whole lot of sense but he felt like April had just a year earlier when she had a minor breakdown over their relationship. He had been the one to tell her how stupid it was to have any insecurity about them and here Andy was going through the same motions.

"Okay Andy, let's do a hypothetical," Leslie said but hastily followed up when Andy looked uncertain of what she meant. "I'm going to say something that isn't necessarily going to happen, and then I'm going to ask you a really serious question. I want you to answer honestly too. Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am," Andy answered, standing up a bit straighter but still slouching. "Hit me."

"All right, let me ask you if," she stressed that last 'if' loudly and raised her hands defensively, " _if_ April is unhappy with your marriage what you think should happen?"

Leslie prepared herself for the worst. She loved Andy like an underdeveloped brother, and he was really just a big child stumbling his way through adulthood. What made her care about him so much was that he never hid that fact, because if she was being truthful Leslie was convinced everyone on the planet was just a scared little kid trying to figure out what the hell to do themselves. He had that honesty, at least. Instead of slumping and looking completely re-beaten and defeating all of their previous talk, Andy looked like he was giving the hypothetical serious consideration.

"So,  _if_ she's super sad about us," Andy was trying to remain calm while saying the sentence, "and she wants to leave, she'll be happier with Greg?"

"Sure, why not," Leslie acquiesced. No part of her believed that April would be able to stand that font of excitement for more than ten seconds at a time. Still, Andy had fixated on one thing and she was going to run with it.

"Then…" he bit down on the same piece of toast from earlier and chewed it thoughtfully, "she should be with him and not me. I mean, if she's happy I'm happy."

Leslie felt her face break into a smile instinctively as she looked into Andy's eyes and saw nothing but a sad honesty in him. Years ago, had he been asked the same thing about Ann Leslie was sure Andy would have nothing good to say on the subject, but things had definitely changed. She quickly glanced to her watch, realized the time, and stood up. He did the same, awkwardly looking around and unsure of what was happening.

"April would have to be crazy to leave you," she grinned, holding her arms out and accepting Andy's usual crushing hug.

"Thanks Leslie," he said after letting her go. "Sorry, I got a little carried away."

"No it's fine," she coughed out, blinking away tears. "Listen, I've got a plan for you: just sit tight, go to your charity work retreat, and when April gets back just talk to her. Honesty is important, and April appreciates how, well, _honest_  you can be."

"Yeah, we're super good at talking," Andy chuckled, "mostly because we have a lot of sex after that."

"All right, didn't need to know that," Leslie raised her hand and turned to walk away. "Good luck Andy!"

Andy nodded to himself after she had left. The hypocritical or whatever made him feel a little better about everything, and he would talk with her about it. Having been through a few weird times in their relationship where neither of them spoke to the other it had become second nature to talk about whatever might be bothering either of them. This time Andy had hesitated and he wanted to smack himself for doing it.

 

* * *

 

 

Andy couldn't have been happier to return to his house. He had walked away with twenty thousand dollars in the name of Andy's pet project, but golf was seriously one of the most boring things he'd ever had to endure. Even if Jimmy, the CFO, was a pretty cool guy and only got weird and business-y when they sat down at the end of the day to talk terms Andy had grown tired of him after only a couple afternoons. On his way home he had picked Champion up from Leslie and the kids and he was sitting impatiently in the passenger seat – whenever someone need to watch him, Champion always ended up with Leslie and Ben. The kids loved him and he had known them since they were barely born, and it definitely helped that Ben secretly liked Champion a whole lot more than he let on.

Walking Champion inside, Andy saw April asleep on the couch and snoring loudly. Letting his grip go slack slightly, the dog limped over to her and started licking her face excitedly. After a few seconds of squinting and eventual sneezing from one tongue too many in her nostrils, April shot up with a bewildered look on her face.

"Good afternoon honey," Andy mumbled. "Didn't know you were gonna be back before me."

"Yeah, we did the speech crap and walked around campus for a day or two," she yawned and stretched awkwardly, "but I needed to get away from Greg."

"Really?" Andy asked, figuring this was his chance to go down this road without too much friction. "I thought you liked him?"

"He was fine when he talked about animals," April shrugged. "Then he never stopped talking… and talking  _so_ loudly. And then he wanted to go hiking and I was seriously considering shoving one of his stupid boots down his throat."

"Well Champ was still at Leslie's so I figured you'd still be away," he explained, scratching the dog's ears before Champion bound up onto April's lap and stretched out as best he could.

"Oh God," she closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, "I forgot about Champion. Sorry, babe it was just a nightmare getting rid of Greg."

Andy sat down next to her on the couch and gave her a short kiss on the lips, only lingering because stopping wasn't ever Andy's strong suit.

"I'm sorry, because I've been an idiot," he explained when her eyebrows mashed together and she looked at him with a puzzled expression. "I thought you… I thought you were going on this trip with Greg because you were bored of me and wanted to be with him, and I-"

He was going to continue but April had started laughing uncontrollably, loudly overpowering his thoughts. She slapped him on the arm, still bowled over from laughter and took another few seconds of comical shaking before she had quieted down.

"Oh, you're serious," she said, wiping away tears that had come out from the clearly hilarious thing Andy had said. "Babe, are you serious?"

"I just thought you were mad at me for making you do real people stuff and," Andy was realizing the craziness in his words as they spilled out, "and I thought you were getting bored or something."

"Andy," April grabbed the sides of his face and kept eye contact all the while talking, "that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard you say. Now, you're going to go to the bedroom and get all the pillows and a blanket. We're going to make a fort on the couch, and then we're gonna have sex in that fort."

"Okay," he said stupidly. Getting up from the couch he nearly tripped over his own feet in a scramble to the bedroom where he scooped up everything that looked remotely like a pillow in his arms. He only wanted to get the stupid blanket out of his face because he was pretty sure he saw April's fancy suit on the floor. Every single thought of her leaving him was tossed out into the open air as he desperately fought with the thick cover obscuring most of his vision.


	7. King and Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is pretty short in comparison, but it's literally just pure fluff. I thought we could all use a couple days of fun after the string of serious stuff. Requested anonymously on tumblr as "fun while shopping" which I combined with a PDA request.
> 
> Thanks for joining me on this dumb, dumb effort so far! Anyone that wants to help by submitting requests can do so pretty much anywhere I have an inbox. Also, it's going to be really awkward for me if those numbers at the end are already taken on the show - you'll know what I mean :)

Andy was already bored the moment they stepped inside the Kroger's. Out of some dumb obligation to Ben's lists, April had kept going back every week to pick up groceries. Andy obviously had to go with her or she'd die of boredom, and in the end he always made her walk away with something really stupid. The last time they went instead of getting milk he decided they really needed two giant foam noodles for the pool they didn't have.

"April," Andy complained, pushing the cart filled with  _boring_ things sporadically, "everything in here's food."

"You're not getting those Super Soakers, we already have two," April quipped. There were a set of green ones he'd never seen before on sale, but they were already barely under budget.

"Ugh," he groaned and scanned the aisle for anything cool to at least take his mind off things.

Then he saw it – quite possibly the only food display he'd ever need to see again in his life. In front of him, delicately sculpted, was a pile of marshmallow packages set up in the shape of a gigantic throne. He didn't bother to read what it was for, because Andy was too busy abandoning the groceries and clambering up to sit on the throne. Somehow he hadn't pushed too many of the bags away, and no one was stopping him, so before he could rethink what he was doing he was sitting atop a throne of marshmallows. April did notice.

"Andy," she was staring dumbfounded at her husband, "what are you doing?"

"Servicing my subjects," he said with a regal wave of his hand.

April was sure he meant 'surveying' but the image in her head was too good to correct him. She started to walk up to him to drag him off of the display, but he wasn't budging. Silently she cursed their difference in size, and another part of her wanted to jump up there with him.

"Come, my… lady," he gave another flourish of his hand. "My queen doth… be requested, hence. Um, here."

"What?" she couldn't figure what the hell Andy was trying to say that time.

"Come up here, let's make out on this thing!" Andy said excitedly, bouncing up and down and causing a few packs of the little white things to fly off the display.

She wasn't going to be able to fight  _that_ logic, and she never had. April gave him a wry smile, he laughed, and she started to make her way up the mountain of squishy, delicious stepping stones. It was obvious when she took her first step on them that the display was definitely never meant to be used like this. Andy reached out a hand to help her up but in the process had shifted forward too far and, combined with a poorly placed step by April, sent the entire right side of the display flowing out into the aisle. Both of them went with the flood, left lying on their backs in the middle of the wrecked fluff throne.

"Y'know," Andy groaned, pushing on his back, "that went about as well as I hoped."

April was already laughing when he started speaking. She sat up, brushing off any rogue marshmallows that had exploded out of their packaging and looking around for the inevitable employee that would usher them out of the store. That guy never came, and April remembered there were perks for shopping incredibly late at night on a Tuesday.

"Hey, Andy," suddenly remembering something, April shook his shoulder. "Isn't there something on your list about doing it on a candy bed?"

It was really one of the dumber things on his bucket list, but it was only a matter of time before he came home horny and with a suitcase full of Laffy Taffy. April considered it an eventuality, and had spent a couple nights staring thoughtfully at a bunch of leftover Halloween candy.

"Oh yeah," Andy said, and immediately rolled over on top of her in the sugary mess.

"Not. In. Here," she was evading his mouth rolling around and making an even bigger mess, their cart now long forgotten and silently rolling around in the aisle. "Buy all of it. Let's go home."

"What, it's not like anyone's even here," Andy complained, his hand riding up the inside of her shirt and along her sides, causing April to laugh.

He was wrong, there were a few other customers and people definitely working, but by the time he was kissing her neck suddenly she really didn't care. There wasn't a whole she could do when he pulled that card. Laughing, she pushed herself between Andy's legs and heard him groan a little. She could feel the weirdly chilly air of a supermarket's air conditioning on her stomach and his lips trailing further down her chest when a voice called out, horrified.

"Excuse me!" a shrill, annoyed woman intoned, causing Andy to stop, annoyingly. "What do you think this is – a brothel?"

April looked over to see, of course, none other than the morality watchdog Marcia Langman staring in disgust at the two of them. What were their odds of seeing her there, April thought. They never saw anyone else when they went out at midnight to finally get shopping over with. Marcia had a bag over her shoulder and one of those dinky little baskets filled with toothpaste and gum. Andy immediately stood up and scratched his ear, unsure of what to do.

"Young man, please… sit down," Marcia blushed, averted her eyes and turned around, shouting behind her back as she walked away from them, "or something!"

Andy leaned over slightly, trying to hide himself from just sort of sticking out in public. April had to roll her lips and crane her neck to avoid laughing. If there was anything Andy was good at doing, it was being obscene. Before long, the mood was pretty much dead and she realized she was sitting in a pile of junk food. Standing up, she picked up a few bags of the marshmallows and threw them in the wayward cart they tracked down. A new plan was forming in the back of her head, and a new thing to cross of his list.

"Andy, go get the Super Soakers," April commanded, picking up useless things like hamburger and other meat, putting them on shelves where she figured beef gone bad would ruin everything. "We're gonna go home and check numbers twenty-five and thirty-two off tonight."

There was a second where Andy had to think what those were – he knew twenty-five, because they were about to finish doing that in the middle of a Kroger's, but it took him a second to figure out the latter one. His eyes lit up and they exchanged knowing grins.

"Awesome!" he yelled and sprinted off in the direction opposite of April. She wasn't sure of the logistics of all that water, or why he needed candy canes, but she had her own ideas brewing.


	8. Leaves and Lights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's fun in the sun today, no strings attached to this one. Requested anonymously on tumblr as a "3x08 extension."
> 
> Enjoy, or don't. Whatever!

Outside of the wayward little bed and breakfast, sitting somewhere along a road outside of the local forests, was a haphazardly built tent. There were what at least looked like rose petals strewn in front of the entrance of the tent, obviously meant to spell something before someone had kicked them around into an illegible mess, and beside the tent was a singular, lonely looking balloon covered in mud and dirt. Except for the sounds of a few animals and low hanging branches scraping along the ground with each passing breeze, the night was silent.

April had already fallen asleep and Andy was on the verge of letting his eyelids droop closed, but something had been keeping him up. He was laying down on the hard ground with only the blanket he'd taken between the dirt and them, elbow propping his head up while he took in the image. He knew it was pretty creepy to stare at people, especially when they were sleeping and doubly especially when they were naked and sleeping, but if anyone appreciated people being creepy it was April so he figured there wasn't anything wrong.

He liked her a whole lot, and Andy wasn't even really sure why other than she was way cooler than anyone else Andy had ever met. No one else was as into the dumb things he was, especially when she could inflict some kind of emotional or bodily harm on somebody else – it was awesome. If that wasn't enough, that look she had on her face when Andy had found them was definitely a damn good reason; it was that mixture of dumb astonishment and excitement brought together by her smile that she hadn't even bothered hiding when it was just them.

Breaking through the quiet night, the wind picked up and a howling whistle traced the air outside. April stirred for a moment, blinked her eyes open, and turned to face Andy who was still in his prone, staring creeper pose.

"I should probably be worried about this," she said, stifling a yawn.

"I know, right?" he laughed and nodded.

Andy pulled up the cover April was under and sidled up next to her so that they were still facing each other, just a little more intimate. They grinned, chuckling under their breaths and moving their bodies closer together.

"You're sure you're not gonna, like, take me back to some weird sex dungeon in your basement," April had hooked her arms around his neck and was pushing herself closer until they were practically stuck together.

Andy usually hated all the stupid sappy stuff that Ann had subjected him to, but he liked the way that April tried to keep a straight face when they kissed but couldn't help herself and let a grin find its way onto her face. He loved when she took one of her legs and started to glide one foot across his, moving up and down while they locked eyes. Andy couldn't really remember much when that happened.

"No…" Andy trailed off, pulling his head back from her. "I thought we could do it in here again, that was pretty cool."

"Yeah, but this is the part where you say you're the kidnapper and I'm your accomplice," she was kissing the sides of his neck and Andy was starting to lose focus of most of what was going on around him. "Or something, I don't really know anymore."

"I still don't know," Andy admitted.

 

* * *

 

In the morning people had started to file out of the bed and breakfast, each of them looking more bleary-eyed than the last and several of them sporting claw marks and scratches. Silently Andy held a competition, and found that he definitely had more nail marks and bites on his body than anyone else. He was packing everything back into his crude knapsack when April emerged from the tent, eyes still almost entirely closed and walking on wobbly, tired legs.

"Ugh, why does the sun have to be up?" she asked, massaging a knot out of her hair and looking around their makeshift campsite. "And where'd everyone go?"

"Oh, they all left I guess," Andy slung his guitar over his shoulder and turned to face her with his ramshackle backpack, "so I figured… we'd, like, leave."

"Cool, where's your car?" April asked, stretching out in the cool morning air.

"Uhh, oh," Andy pointed behind his back into the woods and muttering something before finishing with a straight face, "I don't have a car."

"Andy, I didn't drive here," she complained, giving him a glare. "Who else is here, we can get a ride from them."

"Well, I think Ben and Jerry are still-"

April didn't give time to finish his sentence, already donning her jacket and turning around to start walking down the path leading away from the woods. Leaving the tent standing, the balloon having flown off and caught in a branch somewhere, Andy shuffled to walk beside her. They walked without saying anything for a while, Andy still smiling and curious why she was so quiet. Despite an otherwise sour atmosphere, when he put his hand next to hers April immediately took it and pushed her fingers in between his. Andy tried his best smile and she returned it with a shy grin.

"Hey, this could be fun," he said.

"Why don't we just call Leslie or someone and have them pick us up?" April suggested, swinging Andy's hand and slouching while she walked. "I hate the sun."

"You're gonna have to call, because I'm pretty sure I lost my phone… uh, somewhere last night," Andy shrugged and laughed.

"Of course you did," she chuckled and pulled her phone out but hesitated. "I hate all these trees and stuff, but maybe we could walk a bit more before I call."

They exchanged looks and Andy relaxed his grip on her hand, feeling a lighter step in his feet as they kept walking down the barely constructed road. Andy was pretty sure it didn't even count as a road, since the only material it was made of was basically dirt. The heat from the early morning sun was starting to warm the ground and the air, and before long the sporadic breezes were more comfortable than obnoxious. Every once and a while April would point out a squirrel or some other little woodland animal crawling around, stopping to stare at the two of them, and returning to their daily schedule. At least an hour had passed and April had never bothered to pull her phone back out, now walking with Andy's arm slung over her shoulder and huddled up next to him.

A few times the wind picked up and leaves battered their faces, one time causing Andy to sputter because a wayward leaf had flown into his face with his mouth open. April laughed and in retaliation he picked up a pile of dead leaves strewn across the ground and threw them at her. It didn't take long for their leaf fight to die down, and they were still pulling a few of the things out of their hair and clothes for another ten minutes, but the mood stayed.

"You sure you wanna keep walking," Andy asked, partially honestly and mostly because carrying everything was getting tiring, "'cause I'm sure someone could get us."

"Nah, I kinda like this," April said, shoving him playfully with her shoulder, digging herself deeper into his side. "I mean, it's kinda dumb that everything's quiet but it's fun, right?"

"Yeah," Andy immediately responded.

Again they fell into a mostly quiet march, and Andy  _did_ like it. Something about the quiet Indiana morning, woods, and the sounds of real life just far enough away that it felt like they had escaped it was oddly relaxing. Listening to April explain something about one of the birds they saw flying away, and she was weirdly into its beak or something, Andy figured out why he liked the walk so much. With that thought he gave April a quick kiss on the lips and continued walking, his smile now a permanent fixture on his face.

It took them another hour before April finally gave in, quietly complaining about how annoying the ground was being and that Andy's feet had to be getting sore. Admitting that, and wondering how long the blisters would be bothering him, they sat down by the side of one of the paths they had taken. The sun was in full swing by that time, cutting through the trees and between branches and trying to find anywhere its rays could sit for a while. Little flecks of sunlight were scattered across the ground like light sifted through a colander, creating a miniature natural lightshow. Andy was still sitting down, plucking at a few strings on his guitar and trying to find a chord while April paced in front of him, talking to Leslie on the phone and trying to explain where they were.

He was playing the same three chord progression that always came naturally to him, trying to pass the time and hoping a song idea would spring to mind. April had finished her phone call but was still pacing in the middle of the path, arms crossed and looking agitated. Still, Andy couldn't help but think about how pretty she looked when she walked over one of the little streaks of light pushing through the otherwise separated treetop. Little panes of light rolled over her nose and reflected off of her lips, and a few times Andy thought the word he wanted to use to describe it was beautiful but that sounded dorky and corny so he pushed that to the back of his mind.

"Y'know, it was cute when you stared at me because I was naked," she interrupted him, "but now it's weird."

"Sorry," Andy looked down and fumbled with the pick in his hand.

April was still walking in circles and he couldn't help himself, going back to looking at her. Andy was a gross, scruffy guy who barely kept himself clean and oftentimes didn't shower. He liked to roll around in the mud and play with food, covering himself in it half of the time, and he wondered what the thing was that kept her interested in him. It was true that he now rolled around in mud  _with_ April, and most of the time she was the one initiating it – and usually introducing something cool and new like food fights – but it still had him a little confused. Again she caught him looking but instead of saying anything she just gave him a confused look before returning to her routine.

"All right, what's up?" she asked a little too loudly, stopping and turning to face him. A bright shaft of sunlight was crossing her face, making her usually wide eyes shine a little strangely. "You're being really weird, man."

"You just look… like, really beautiful right now," Andy strummed in between his words, letting the quiet music ring a little before he spoke again, "I dunno, I mean I always thought that and stuff but I, uhh, just sorta thought of it now."

There was a beat between what he had said and when the words processed through April's head. Andy was still playing softly, wondering if he had been too sappy for her – he wasn't even sure how he was supposed to compliment her anyways. She smiled shyly and sat down next to him, looking at his guitar.

"Think of any songs?" April leaned back on her arms for support, looking back and forth along the road impatiently. "I mean, besides whatever you sang last night."

"I forgot that already," he admitted, muting the strings and keeping a thick, warm undercurrent of playing going, "but I got a new song I think."

"Yeah, what's it called?" she squinted through the sun's glare.

"I, uhh…" he wasn't even really writing anything, just playing and thinking a few stray thoughts, "I guess it's called, um, 'April Ludgate's the Best.'"

He finished the sentence by moving his palm off of the strings, allowing the improvised progression to sound a little louder in the woods. He'd figure out the lyrics later, but he let the image of April with that little bit of light running over her fuel most of the music. April's lips quivered and soon she was giving him another reluctant grin. Her head dropped onto his shoulder as he played, mumbling along random lyrics strung together that sounded vaguely like a song. He didn't have much time to finish his work before a red sedan styled car stopped in front of them and Ron stepped out of the car.

They piled Andy's things into the backseat and took the passenger seat over, April sitting on his lap while he hummed the progression of his new song to her throughout the ride. It wasn't long before Ron told him to shut up and enjoy the silence, but it was fun while it lasted he thought. However, April wasn't done and soon she was humming it back to Andy who joined in over the sounds of a grumbling, distressed Ron.


	9. Anniversaries and Lots of Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, another short one but I don't think I've quite gotten used to writing longer fluffier oneshots. Anyways, this came to my mind when I figured out it's been a week of continued one-shotting. Also, it fills a request by and-im-stefon-meyers on tumblr: "a bewildered Andy asking Leslie why April is mad at him for something."
> 
> So, enjoy. And if you want this to go on for a while more I recommend leaving me some requests/ideas/whatever [on tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) or anywhere you can find an inbox with my name attached to it!

It was a pretty normal day in Pawnee. People moved around the sidewalks on assisted transport, people smashed their car horns loudly in frustration at the morning traffic, and the few people walking or on bicycles feared every waking second of their route. The smell of grossly over refined sugars replaced the fresh Midwestern air and no one seemed to notice or even care. Dogs barked, lawnmowers occasionally sang out, and the people that bothered let their sprinkler systems water their lawns for them. In spite of that, Andy thought there was something different that he was supposed to remember but didn't spend any more thought on it. As he was getting ready to sit down next to April before they drove into City Hall, something seemed to be making her angry. She wasn't a particularly lively morning person but she usually at least  _talked_ to him.

The drive, likewise, was uncomfortable. When April sat at her desk in the Parks office, she immediately started to read a magazine and seemed to be ignoring everything he tried to catch her attention.

"April," his attempt at being subtle wasn't helped by the distance between them, so his 'whisper' came out nearly as a shout. "Hey, April!"

"What?" she hissed, turning to face him with an agitated grimace on her face.

"What's up, babe?" Andy played with a pen in his hands while he spoke. "You're kinda acting all mad."

April scoffed in response and stood up, walking out of the offices with her magazine. Andy knew that walk – she  _was_ angry. But for the life of him there wasn't anything that stuck out to him as being so important that she would be that mad at him. Looking over his shoulder, Leslie was busy writing something into another binder, marking lines off in a brightly colored marker and nodding to herself. Andy knew if anyone could help him it was Leslie. She always knew what to do.

"Hey Andy," she said without looking up, pointing to a chair by her desk with her off hand, "sit down."

Doing as he was told, Andy pulled a chair out in front of her desk and sat silently while she finished scratching off sentences and highlighting others. Twiddling his thumbs was only so interesting before he had to talk.

"Leslie, how'd you do that?" he asked, partially forgetting why he was even in there to begin with.

"You think I can't hear you and April fighting out there?" she laughed, closing the binder and looking up to meet his eyes. "I should have timed how long it took you to come in here. That'd be fun, right?"

"Oh yeah, totally. Anyways, can you help me?" Andy scratched his head as he talked. "This morning April didn't even want bologna pancakes. She's super mad."

"That sounds horrifying, but continue," Leslie made a face and shook her head.

"No they're super good, you just throw 'em in a pan and fry the slices," Andy nodded his head excitedly, "and it's awesome with syrup."

"So, fried bologna?" She asked, more interested in a new breakfast food that had somehow never crossed her mind before closing her eyes and shaking her head again. "No! No, okay so April's mad at you and you wanna know why."

Andy nodded and Leslie bit her lip in concentration.

"Did you do something yesterday, this morning…?" she suggested but Andy didn't have anything, just shaking his head and shrugging. "Did you forget something? Ah, we'll just check the dates."

While Andy was trying earnestly to remember anything, Leslie opened the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a calendar labeled 'April' and another labeled 'Andy.' April's was a plain brown calendar with a picture of April giving the camera the middle finger in the corner while Andy's had a plethora of pictures with him on it and even a few Mouserat concert fliers and badges. She flipped one open and started tracing over the important dates she marked for gift-giving reference.

"Hm, last Friday I got April her first congratulatory box of stickers," she said while glancing between both of their calendars. Andy had never seen someone mark down so many normally useless dates as something important.

"Oh, I bet she  _hated_ that," Andy remarked, smiling to himself.

"It was an interesting day," Leslie admitted, smirking. "And two days ago you shined someone's shoe for the first time. Oh look, there's something here about today in both of these. Today you both… oh,"

Leslie's eyes widened a bit and Andy moved to look over her hands and at the date she was cross referencing. She flipped both of them shut and stuffed them back into the desk, a look of concern spreading on her face. Andy wasn't sure what today was and why it was so suddenly dire.

"Yeah, what happened?" Andy asked while he sat back down. "What could we both have possibly done today that April would be so mad at me for forgetting?"

"Andy," Leslie looked him in the eyes for a second before finishing her sentence looking elsewhere, "you got  _married_ today. You forgot your anniversary."

 

* * *

 

It was stupid to be mad at him and April knew that, but she figured that out of all the things Andy would remember one would have to be their anniversary. She didn't even know  _why_ she was so angry with him over something that otherwise should have just passed quietly without either of them caring. Their relationship wasn't exactly what most people considered normal, and that was awesome to April. Anniversaries were just another boring adult thing that they weren't supposed to celebrate. On the other hand, part of her figured that maybe they would go out and burn something down for old time's sake or steal something from City Hall just because. April even thought they'd go buy some of the good pig's blood from the butcher and have a fun slip n' slide afternoon in the park and maybe get arrested when a kid complained to their mom.

Then none of that happened, and here she was in a stupid municipal government building expected to do work instead of drench herself in Nickelodeon gack and scare people on the street. Instead of even bothering to not do anything by her desk, April was sitting on a bench in a fourth floor hallway where she usually could see at least one stabbing to keep things in perspective.

In the middle of her reverie, and side-eyeing a drug deal in the corner, her phone rang loudly from her pocket. It was Andy, so she let the call go to voicemail and decided she'd bother with him later. For now she was trying to figure out whether the guy in the trench coat was trying to sell sugar to the haggard lady. Again her phone rang and she let it do so all the way to voicemail once again, hoping he was getting how annoyed she was. Irrationally annoyed, she thought, but ticked off nonetheless.

It took three more calls before she couldn't take hearing the stupid chorus from 'Sex Hair' another time.

"Hey, I was getting worried," Andy said, "I just, um, yeah hey."

April didn't answer him, trying to figure out how long she wanted to stay mad at him before it would get boring. She decided another few minutes would work, though risking a full day of mostly feigned frustration usually meant really angry makeup sex so April had to really consider her next move. Meanwhile Andy sputtered half formed sentences during the one-sided phone call.

"Wow, that was incredible Andy," she replied, hoping the dripping sarcasm worked, "did you just think of that yourself?"

"Okay, okay… yes, I did," he admitted and April could see the dumb smile on his face in her head and wanted to be there if only to smack him. "But, Leslie said we can go home early. And you're kinda my ride, so…"

"We've only been here an hour," April said, confused.

"Yeah, but Leslie said we could go so, meet me in the parking garage?" he asked, hanging up.

At least she could be angry at home. That was a plus. Besides, April never argued when people told her she could leave early so she didn't know why she would suddenly care now. Hanging the phone up, April left the fourth floor begrudgingly as the woman realized that it was actually really fine flour that she was being sold. God she loved the fourth floor.

 

* * *

 

Andy paced in front of the trunk of the car, trying to remember everything he had set up and planned. There was an awful lot a motivated Leslie Knope could get done in an hour and despite her arguments against some of his more interesting requests, she had pulled through for them. All she could worry about was the carpet anyways, and who cared about that? April appeared a few minutes later, a stoic expression on her face that Andy considered a minor victory. Apathy was at least a step up from outright anger and by now he was well-versed in dealing with an otherwise lethargic April.

"Okay, so let's go," April motioned to the car and Andy nodded and hopped into the passenger seat.

She didn't say anything else to him on the ride and for a second he wondered if his plan would be enough. That thought didn't last long when they made it back home, April walking ahead of him willingly. He rubbed his hands together, trying to contain his excitement as she unlocked the door and opened it up, stepping inside. There was a soft swishing noise as a bucket dropped from the top of the door and tipped over, still attached to a taut looking rope. Soon a deep red liquid poured slowly onto April's head covering her front to back, head to toe and even dripping a bit onto the floor.

Turning around, there was a second where Andy thought he had made the wrong play. April's face was expressionless, partly due to her eyebrows being caked in corn syrup and dripping all over, and he was worried that he had just made it worse. Fortunately, it didn't take long before her face split into a smile and she was running into Andy to hug him and get him just as drenched in the stuff. Andy dropped to the grass and took her with him, both of them wrestling in the dirt and spreading their red trail around the yard.

"Sorry I forgot about our anniversary," Andy said finally when she was done smearing syrup on his cheeks. "I didn't think you'd care this much about it."

"Me neither," April said, spitting out some of the viscous liquid that had dropped onto her lips, "but I'm glad you didn't do something stupid like other guys would have."

"Oh don't worry, there's more," he raised his eyebrows and pointed towards the house.

She gave him another smile, a quick and otherwise weirdly sticky kiss on the lips, and got up running into the house. Andy followed after, tracing the red pattern of excited, running feet across the carpet into the living room. It didn't take long before an excited scream echoed through the house. Andy figured she must have found the slip 'n slide stretching through the backyard and was wondering how she would react to the redecoration of their kitchen when she saw it. She always did like weird, grinning skeletons.


	10. Loss and Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, another hurt/comfort ish or whatever here. Fills an anonymous request on tumblr.
> 
> Let me know whether you like it or not, because I'm bad at this sort of thing. Also if you want to pitch in on some ideas or whatever/request something, you can drop an ask [on tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) or wherever I have an inbox. Thanks for any support you've given me throughout this bizarrely satisfying endeavor - reading, commenting, or anything else is super appreciated.
> 
> Enjoy!

It was the first day that Andy didn't go with April for her checkup, which was just another banal appointment where they'd both stare at a fuzzy black and white picture and nod when the doctor pointed at a small oval on the screen. They were supposed to be excited or something, but they usually just shrugged and went about their day as usual. Andy expected it to be another day of that and had accidentally scheduled a Johnny Karate gig at the same time as the appointment, but April didn't seem to care. So he went, played for a bunch of effervescent kindergarteners, and packed away his gear to go home. It was just a regular day, filled with the things in any other day – Andy spilled coffee on himself in the morning, a kid stuck a booger on one of his guitars, and April was probably at work not doing anything.

Thinking to himself how obviously ordinary and awesome the day would be, Andy was a little surprised to be pulling up next to April's car in the driveway. She probably just took the day off, he decided. Inside the house there wasn't any sound, so he assumed April just went back to sleep and Andy walked into the kitchen to finish off whatever take-out leftovers were stashed in the fridge. Before he could get there, however, he was confronted by April sitting at the small table in the kitchen, playing with a spoon in a cup idly and looking downcast.

"Hey, babe…" Andy tried, "get out of work early?"

April didn't say anything and instead stopped the circular motion with the spoon, standing up and walking over to him. Silently she moved her arms under his, put her head against his chest, and stood there hugging him. Unsure, he returned the hug and sat in the unusual position for a while. It had to have been a long time because Andy could feel his arms stiffen and his legs get sweaty from being stuck together and next to April for so long.

Detaching himself from her, he looked down trying to gauge the situation.

"What's wrong?" Andy asked, trying to meet her eyes. "You look super pissed. Did the new guy do something stupid again?"

"I'm not pissed," she answered quietly.

"Cool, then I'm gonna go sleep," Andy said, turning around and ready to move before he heard a sharp scoff behind him. "Or I won't, that's cool too."

"Can we sit down," April didn't let him answer, going into the living room and sitting up on the couch with her knees brought to her chest.

Andy followed, sitting next to her. If someone pointed a gun at his head and told him he had to figure out what was bothering April or he'd die, Andy figured there was a ninety-nine percent chance he'd be missing his head. Normally her general mood was uncaring or apathetic, but this was distant. April was never  _absent_ – she liked being there to catch people's mistakes and make fun of them, or suggest an outrageous idea on the incredibly off chance that someone would approve it.

"So…" Andy started.

"Andy you know what a miscarriage is, right?" April asked, staring at her hands. "You did read that far in one of the books, didn't you?"

"I think, isn't that, like, when the baby-" Andy struggled for the definition in his head, until April's look –  _that_ look, the one where she had to tighten her lips and look everywhere but at him – told him enough.

"The doctor said it's pretty common in the first trimester," she explained, rubbing her shins as some sort of activity to keep her brain from focusing on the words she said. "And that we won't really know what caused it for a while, or something."

Andy didn't know what to say that could have made it any better, and in fact he was pretty sure that anything he said would probably make everything worse, so he simply sat there with his arm slumped over her back. They were quiet for a while like that, and Andy didn't realize the importance of what she was saying for most of that – their kid was just  _gone_. It had been so exciting and Andy was so ready to be a dad, but now he simply  _wasn't_ going to be.

"I guess it's, like, the universe telling us something," April put her head on his shoulder while she spoke. "It's telling me I'm not supposed to be a mom, I think."

"Oh come on, that's dumb," Andy chided her, trying to ease the tension in her shoulders with his other hand, "you'll be an awesome mom."

"Andy, a baby literally died in me. That's messed up," she explained, pulling away from him and looking a little offended, "and I think I was right. I'm so not capable of being a mother."

"You just said that we don't know why it happened," he countered.

"We don't  _know_ but I know, okay?" she said, but Andy didn't know – he was just super confused. "I knew it: I knew it wasn't going to work."

Andy tried to think of any different way that she'd know this, and when the most logical seemed to be that she'd been pregnant before he just pushed that into some dark corner of his brain where he'd burn it from sight forever. They sat like that for another brief moment, the two of them quiet. He wasn't equipped to handle this situation and Andy was afraid of them getting into an argument over it.

"Look, we can try again and, and…" Andy stuttered, not sure what he was supposed to say, "and that's the best we can do, I guess."

"What if I don't want to try again?" she asked in a small voice.

"Then… that's cool," he finally said, disheartened at the news. "It's not like I can make you have a baby."

"Really? Just like that, no kid?" April asked, "I thought it was on your bucket list or whatever that thing is anymore."

"I mean it sucks, but…" Andy trailed off, scratching his beard before finishing, "and I want you to know that you'd be a better mom than that Mother Theresa lady-"

"That's not-"

"We'd be the best parents, like, ever and I want that for us," he didn't let her interrupt his sentence, continuing unabated. "But if I have to, I'd rather be married to you with no kids than have kids with someone else."

Andy didn't like saying it and part of him wished she would change her mind on the spot, but when April gave him a brief smile and she stood up he figured it would have to do.

 

* * *

 

It had been another couple of months before people started asking her questions, wondering why she wasn't showing at least a little bit, and April dreaded telling anyone about the miscarriage. Andy nearly had a heart attack keeping the secret, but as far as April was aware he was keeping things under wraps for her. She had already hated herself when she saw a little disappointment in Andy's face in the morning, and now she was sitting with Leslie over lunch, getting ready to explain why her belly was still the same old same old.

"Leslie," April started, catching her when she bit into a waffle, "I need you to not freak out, and not tell  _anyone_ what I'm about to say."

"Okay," Leslie answered slowly, putting the mound of whipped cream back down, "so let's talk. What's up?"

"It's about the baby," she moved her hands in a circle around her stomach, unsure what else to do with her hands.

"Oh yeah, how's that coming along? Ron's almost done with the crib," Leslie was already too excited, and April couldn't stop her without just spitting it out, "and Ben already started a futures expense report on what you guys should look forward to money-"

"Leslie there's no baby," she said quickly. "I had a miscarriage two months ago, so let's just eat after having learned that and move on with our day."

There was a second where Leslie thought April was joking, because of course she would joke about something like that, but when April returned to her food and silently jabbed at a few pieces on her plate, she made a weird sound. Reaching out she grabbed April's unwilling hand and held it in one of hers. Still, neither of them actually said anything. April just wanted to leave and pretend that none of this was happening – she really didn't want to relive this conversation.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Leslie asked.

"Because I didn't want to?" April pulled her hand away and went back to her food. "Besides, it's fine. You're the one who said we weren't ready to be parents anyways, so it works out for everyone."

"Oh, stop it," she returned, clearly offended by the last remark, "I didn't mean you weren't ready to be parents, I meant… you weren't-"

"Ready to be parents? Yeah, that's what I remember," April interrupted. "It's fine Leslie, we're already over it. Andy and I already had a big talk about it, and we're just gonna not have kids or whatever."

Leslie made a 'tut' noise and bit her lip, concentrating on something. That was never good when April had already decided on something, since that meant more arguments were coming.

"But you guys were so happy to be parents," Leslie finally said, pulling a small album out of her purse. "See, Andy's in the middle of jumping over the permits counter here and you're actually smiling in a picture. Without giving it the finger."

"Why do you have that in your purse?" April asked, a little frightened.

"Doesn't everyone keep their one hundred most important memories in a photo album on them at all times?" Leslie sounded sincere.

"No, they usually just have a phone…" April was staring at the picture and Andy vaulting over the low counter, a dumb grin plastered on his face from ear to ear.

There were days she thought about reversing her decision, a couple nights they had sex she wondered if she shouldn't have taken any pills or let him even use a condom, but April always fought against it in her head. It was clear to her that day when she got the news that her body wasn't fit to house a child – she wasn't fit to be a mother in the purest, physical sense and that made sense to her. Then Andy came into the picture and made her doubt that altogether, nearly scrubbing it away over a few months but then she remembered the feeling on that day – an empty feeling in her chest and a sagging weight in the back of her mind, barely wanting to get out of bed the next day, and making Andy promise never to have kids with her.

"April, I'm sure you haven't thought this through," Leslie interrupted her, pulling the album away from her, "but I can't tell you what to do on this one."

"No, you can't," April bit her lip and wondered.

"I'm sorry, I won't bring this up with anyone," Leslie made a motion with her hands like she was closing a zipper on her mouth. "Secret's safe with me."

They ate without saying anything else, quietly finishing their food and returning to City Hall where April left her to go to the Parks offices herself. No matter what she tried, she couldn't that image of enthusiastic Andy leaping over that counter out of her mind. He was so pumped up by the news that day, and she was pretty sure he never simmered down for another month – every day high-fiving April before they went to work and trying his best to read the book that Leslie had forced onto them. They had both worked so hard, and were ready to work even harder for the kid when it finally dropped out of her.

She just couldn't get one image out of her head: Andy holding a baby in his arms and looking like his face would split in half from the smile.

 

* * *

 

The days gliding on by after that were strange to Andy. April was acting weird around him again, like something was bothering her, but he usually let it boil over before asking her about it – he usually had the thought to talk with her earlier and realized he was oftentimes too lazy or bored by the prospect of what they would talk about. After their talk some months before Andy had taken out his bucket list and marked off his wish about having a son, chalking that up to a lost cause. He believed what he said – they'd have a great life together just the two of them, so maybe having a kid would just ruin it for them.

He expressed that thought and was met with a begrudged agreement from April, who looked a little disappointed when he said that. If anything else was confusing to him in their life, that was an absolutely mystifying response to something they'd agreed upon already. He was just trying to sweeten the deal for her and it surprised him to get some amount of backlash.

These thoughts were running through his head when April asked him to sit down for something important. It was going to be another one of  _those_ talks, he thought, and Andy didn't want to have any misconceptions about where the conversation would inevitably end up.

"Andy, you know how we talked about not doing this… kid thing?" April asked.

"Yep," he replied shortly.

"Okay, how do you feel about that?" she continued. "Like, is that cool with you? Are you rethinking it, like, at all?"

"Nope, still not… into it," he put on the same fake smile when he finished.

"Right," April nodded, "so you're not, like, lying to me to try and make me happy? You really don't want a son so you can show him how to throw the perfect spiral?"

Andy thought about the list and checking off both of those things prematurely. He'd be lying if he said otherwise, but he also didn't want April to feel bad about the decision they'd made. So he stuck to his guns.

"No lies here," he turned around, "no regret whatsoever."

"Well what if I said I wanted to try again?" April said from behind him and, for a second there, he was sure his heart wasn't going to slow down from the adrenaline rush. "What would you say then?"

"Is this a test?" Andy spun back around quickly, making himself dizzy and requiring him to use the counter to stabilize himself, "like is this another one of those hypodermicals?"

"Hypothetical?"

"Yes, that," he nodded, pushing himself off the counter. "This is one of those isn't it?"

April shook her head quietly, crossing her arms. He didn't know whether that was the angry shake of disbelief or if that was supposed to be answer, so Andy continued standing there. It took a few awkward seconds of silence before she spoke up.

"No, it's not," April said, "I'm serious."

"Yes… I mean, no! I mean, uh, what made you change your mind?" Andy was perplexed, sentences spilling out haphazardly. "Yeah, I thought we were just gonna go back to the creepy twins plan."

"Well, I talked to Leslie… or I guess I didn't, I just looked at her weird obsessive photography collection," April shook her head before continuing. "Anyway, I guess we can try at least. Like, I think we'd be awesome as parents and we don't want to take that away from someone, or something."

"So, this is real? You're cool with it again?" Andy cautiously walked forwards, looking around the kitchen for something to give away her ruse.

"Yes it's real, Andy," she said, biting back a smile. "Plus I want to see how ugly our baby will be."

"Oh it's gonna be so gross," Andy said absentmindedly, looking into April's eyes as she nodded. "And yeah, let's go make a baby."

He grabbed her hand and dragged her across the kitchen. She started a protest, but he was way too big for her to actually break away from.

"Right now, seriously?" April shouted after him. "I mean, I'm game but-"

"But what? No thinking, just sex," he looked to her over his shoulder. Repeating slowly, he said, "No thinking-"

"Just sex," April finished, grinning. "And then a baby."

"Yeah, but the important part is that we didn't think," Andy picked her up when they made it to the bedroom, pushing her up against the wall so he didn't have to support her the entire time himself. "I hate that part."

"The worst," she mumbled, skimming his neck with her lips for a second before Andy couldn't remember which direction was which or why he wasn't wearing any pants anymore.


	11. Movies and Booze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super short fluff - made me reconsider my rating and decided it could be bumped up a notch. Nothing explicit, if that's not for you, but things have been getting a bit less PG for a while. Thanks for any feedback or requesting (which you can totally do just about anywhere)! 
> 
> Enjoy.

Movie night had become sort of a thing for the two of them, and Andy certainly wasn't complaining – he was literally broke. Even so, he never understood half of the movies April picked out. Some because they were just in a completely different language and the rest just went over his head most of the time. Whenever he saw the little envelope with that weird art house video store's logo on it he died a little inside, especially when it was something like  _Nosferatu_ (it was basically a silent, boring  _Dracula_ and if there's no Keanu Reeves then who cares?) but he did get excited when he saw something called  _Public Enemy_ until he realized there was no Chuck D to be found anywhere in the movie.

That night it was Andy's pick though, and it was his turn to subject April to something awesome. The last few attempts at showing her his favorite movies ever all fell flat. Andy had never seen someone hate so many Steven Seagal movies in his entire life; it was baffling to him that she didn't even react at all to the montages in  _Hard to Kill_. It was criminal as far as he was concerned.

"All right Andy," April sat down next to him, crossing her legs on the couch and picking up a bag of assorted candy Andy stole from a convenience store, "if this is terrible I'm revoking your movie picking rights."

"Dude, if you don't like this then... you're probably the worst," Andy finished. "I mean, who doesn't like  _Airplane!_?"

"Wouldn't know, never saw it," April picked out a round candy that looked like a gumball and hoped for the best when she put it in her mouth.

"You've seen  _Das Boot_ and not this?" he asked, incredulous. She only shrugged.

Andy usually didn't remember the names of the weird foreign stuff she made him watch, but that one – that stupid sub movie – was the most soul-sucking experience he'd ever had to endure. Most of the images in that film just blurred past him, somehow making every passing second longer than the last and turning his brain into mush. April hadn't even wanted to make out while something stupid like depressurization happened on screen, so Andy was forced to eat copious amounts of Milk Duds or go insane.

Over the entire runtime of the movie, Andy was pretty sure he only caught her laughing once and it was at the jive-talking. The increasingly excessive drug habits of Lloyd Bridges, though? Not a chuckle. He even wondered if she could laugh at all when the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar jokes seemed to go completely untouched.

"Is it weird that you're dating someone older than you?" Andy asked in the middle of the finale, sure that April wanted to do anything other than keep watching it.

"Is it weird that  _you're_ dating someone younger than you?" she retorted, pulling apart what looked like a gummy worm. "It's not like you're one hundred or something."

"Yeah, but you like all this weird stuff that I've never heard of," he scratched his beard and continued, "but it's cool stuff, and I-"

"Andy it's fine, I hate those dumb action movies so you can hate the dumb stuff I like," April interrupted.

"Really?" he asked, sincerely hoping she was being serious. "I mean it's not dumb if you like it, right?"

"No, it's probably pretty stupid," she finished chewing something and continued. "If we had to like every single thing the other person liked, don't you think you'd go nuts? I mean, if I had to like Dave Matthews Band-"

"Which you do, because they're awesome," Andy corrected her.

"Sure, whatever," April conceded, not wanting to go down that road again, "but I don't think we're supposed to be into all the same stuff."

"Yeah, that sounds boring," he admitted, taking one of the chocolate bars out of the brown bag of stolen goodies.

They were silent for a little while until April left to grab something out of her kitchen. Andy wasn't sure where his original question came from, but it did make him wonder: was it weird that he was dating someone who was almost a decade younger than he was? When they hung out it didn't seem to matter but every time they tried to sneak into a bar or when a cultural divide like something as simple as movies came up it made him wonder how creepy he was being.

"Dude," April interrupted him, wide-eyed and carrying a fancy looking bottle of some dark liquid, "my parents left and they forgot to take the keys to the liquor cabinet again. My sister didn't even take everything either."

"Score!" he shouted, forgetting whatever stupid thing he was thinking about as April sat down, opening the glass bottle that just looked more expensive than almost everything Andy owned.

They took turns taking swigs straight from the crystal enclosed whiskey and soon Andy's head was feeling, of all things, sort of itchy and spinning. He loved this part of being drunk and especially when he tried to stand up, falling over and usually breaking most things in a seven or eight-foot radius. However, he was preoccupied with a flushed looking April grinding against him and kissing him with warm lips. If it ever happened with Burly Andy would never sleep a solid night again in his life, but this was  _pretty_ cool.

April was definitely into it, her thin pajama pants giving Andy the gist of her feelings each time she smashed her hips against his groin. Normally this would be the part where he stopped thinking, but Andy kept thinking a bunch of dumb, weird thoughts and found he was voicing them before long.

"You're… uhh, you sure you wanna do this?" he blurted out.

Andy's head exploded a little when he heard himself saying that – why, why, why would you ask that? – and he wanted to just stop  _thinking_. It was so stupid and it was hard to do a lot of the time, usually getting in the way of things. Things like April unzipping his pants.

"No Andy, this is clearly you sexually assaulting me. I should call it in, in fact," she slurred.

"You're drunk," Andy returned, trying to ignore her hand. "I mean, I uhh… hm, I don't know."

"So stop talking," April said, catching his eyes through her eyelashes.

"I mean, you- you…" Andy was completely gone in her hands, but he was still trying to form sentences with all of his will, "you done this before?"

"I'm twenty, not five," she said, and Andy should have told her to stop there because now his brain was going strange places. "Are you going to keep talking? This is hard when you're drunk, it's, heh, hard when you're-"

"Good one," he groaned, laughing along with her and wondering how someone half his size had this much tolerance for so much strong booze.

Then another thought popped into his head – he was thirteen when she was five, and this would have been mega gross then. Andy didn't want to think about it, but he literally couldn't stop that image running through his head and had to jump off of the couch, pulling his pants back up. April gave him a surprised look, or what should have been surprised but passed over into the weird drunken slurry of expressions no one sober or sane can really identify.

"You okay, man? You're acting really weird," she said, laying across the couch and staring intently at him.

"I dunno, it's just…" Andy had moved to a chair in the room to avoid having to stand up for a little while.

"Are you really weirded out by this?" April propped her head up on an elbow, giving him another confused look. "Or is it something else…?"

"No… I mean, I don't know. I really, ugh…" Andy was at a loss for words, truly unsure of what he was supposed to be thinking when his admittedly hot girlfriend was the one waiting for  _him_.

"Is it because of the age thing?" she sat up, apparently sobering from the conversation. "Is it really that weird to date me?"

"Well, yeah but no!" he shouted quickly when she looked a little defeated by his original sentiment. "Yeah it feels weird sometimes, and I'm not sure why… I dunno, should it be weird?"

"No, you're a dude this should be, like, awesome to you," she said. "Besides, who cares?"

Now that was a pretty good argument and Andy's sloshed brain couldn't figure out an answer. He shrugged, stepping back over to her and laying across her on the couch, trying not to crush her by just laying down and on her. April's answer of biting her lip and wrapping her legs around his waist made Andy forget  _literally_ everything that he'd ever known for a second because he was pretty sure he was going to burst from the friction in that brief moment.

"Do you, like, wanna-"

"Bedroom?" she interrupted.

"Too much time," he said, unbuttoning her shirt with hands suddenly losing any and all dexterity.

"Too many stairs," she agreed, shimmying the rest of the way out of her pants.

Andy didn't really think of much else that night. He was too busy remarking how awesome movie night was, at least for a little while because there weren't that many thoughts going through his head.


	12. Video

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mega short, I know! However, I had a fun idea that's more of an outside-looking-in approach to Andy/April. Also, this is probably one of the only times I'll include the doc crew because I just don't like writing in this style that often. Kind of like a little missing moment between the end of 3x09 and the after-credits scene of the episode.
> 
> Remember, you can always PM me or drop an ask [on tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) if you have an idea, request, or (and especially) if you have any feedback. Positive, negative, doesn't matter. Hit me!
> 
> Enjoy.

April was staring at an email from Leslie and the little attachment icon next to it. They were only a day into their 'honeymoon' when she started getting emails every single day asking questions ranging from work-related to excited jumbles of consonants. She loved Leslie, but there were days when that was tested to the extreme. She clicked open the attachment and smiled when it brought up her video player, and the email just had one little phrase:

_Cut footage_

 

* * *

 

"If you ask me," Leslie said, looking into the camera, "this is the dumbest thing these two could have done. I mean, this is one of the biggest decisions they could ever make and they did it all on a whim."

She took a moment to take a drink from the cup in her hand, and behind her the sounds of a party continued. The lighting was such that you couldn't really tell where she was being filmed save for the incredibly loud music, and the sounds of Tom yelling in the background, so it had to be the Snakehole. From off screen a voice started shouting.

"It's  _so stupid_!" the voice of a thoroughly hammered Ben echoed through the hallway.

"But, I can't do anything about it and they're happy," Leslie slurred in response to the shout. "Besides, we all do stupid things sometimes…"

Leslie turned away, looking somewhere outside of the periphery of the camera. Following her look, it focused briefly on Ben in a corner before being shooed away by Leslie's hand and drunken ranting.

 

* * *

 

The cameraman was running now, recording the ground moving quickly as he ran down a street. A few seconds passed before he realized the camera was on, and the image goes black again.

 

* * *

 

Someone's standing in front of the camera, talking to Ron and discussing something. After a few seconds of nodding from Ron, the guy moves to go behind the camera and picks it up. He asks something that ends up being too muffled to hear properly through the crappy laptop speakers, but Ron speaks up.

"I don't care," he answered.

There's a beat between this blunt answer and a stifled laugh from the cameraman. He asks another question that sort of sounds like a collection of words but the acoustics of the room weren't helping him.

"No, I really don't give a shit," he said flatly. "That's it. They can do whatever they want – they're both adults. Marriage is for the young and stupid anyways."

The cameraman asks a question and for a split second it sounds like he mentions someone named Tammy. Ron immediately frowns and stands up, turning around and leaving the small room. There's another beat before the screen goes black again.

 

* * *

 

"What are you watching, babe?" Andy interrupted her, walking inside.

"Leslie sent me this dumb video," she nodded to the screen, moving over on the small sofa to accommodate him, "and so far it's just people talking. It's kinda boring."

As she said that the camera came back to life and revealed another person sitting down. April groaned at the sight of Ann looking like she was actually excited to answer whatever stupid questions the crew had for her.

 

* * *

 

This time the audio from the crew seemed to be audible. Ann sat at attention on a stool and from the ambient noise it was clear that Ann was being interviewed just moments after Leslie. Throughout the exchange, cutting through the quieting club and the question and answer Leslie was shouting and laughing.

"So," a quiet voice asked from off screen, "Andy and April? What're your thoughts on it?"

Ann's only response at first is to shrug, and the cameraman laughs. She flashes him a brief smile before straightening her back and coughing. Resuming her previous calm she quickly starts speaking again.

"Well, in a weird way it's kind of perf-"

 

* * *

 

April doesn't let Ann finish what she's saying before the video is muted.

"Oh come on, that sounded nice," Andy complained, moving to go return the volume to normal before April grabbed his hand.

"Exactly," she said slowly, "and the last thing I want is Ann being  _nice_ to us."

For a second April thought she was going to vomit when she had to fight her way through the word 'nice' in any relation to that she-witch. Andy bit his lip but sat back in the couch, watching Ann mouth something excitedly before getting up to go towards the direction of where Leslie's voice originally came from in the beginning of the clip. Another brief moment of nothing on the screen and Tom's face appeared suddenly in the center of the shot.

 

* * *

 

"I'd never get married again," he explained to the camera.

"Because the first time was already too hard," a sympathetic voice said from behind the camera. "Right?"

"No, because next time someone divorces me they might actually want my money," he gave the camera an incredulous look before turning around and leaving. A muffled groan of disappointment came out of the cameraman before the video went black and a few muttered curses sent the clip out.

Afterwards, a short message scrolled across the screen:

_There was supposed to be more footage here but then we had to interview Jerry._

_We tried, but I'm pretty sure Jim fell asleep while he was talking so for a lot of the time the camera was pointed at the floor. Jerry didn't seem to notice, so he kept talking. None of it was important anyways, so we cut all of it then burned that SD card as per request._

 

* * *

 

"Oh God, can you imagine what he had to say?" Andy laughed.

"I don't want to," she replied, scrubbing through the runtime before finding another actual interview. "I'm sure it'd scar me for life."

Andy laughed again and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before turning back to watch the video.

 

* * *

 

The camera pans up to see Chris jogging in place, pumping his hands as if he were actually running. The cameraman takes a few steps to get Chris in the shot without having to wobble around after it was clear that there was no way to get him to stop moving. After finding the right angle, he gives Chris a countdown before starting.

"What do you know about April and Andy?" the voice asks, "and what do you think of them getting married."

"Oh, they are quite possibly the best people I have ever met," he answered, huffing out his words with each exhale. "It was  _literally_ the most beautiful thing I'll ever see in my life, and I'm sure they'll make each other happy."

The cameraman grunts in agreement, sticking to the shot for a few more seconds before realizing that's all the man had to say. Beat, then black again.

 

* * *

 

"That man terrifies me," April admitted, closing the video player and her laptop.

"Is that it?" Andy asked, looking a little disappointed. "Was that all there was?"

"I dunno, but I'm going to go find somewhere nice and flat to lay down," she said slowly while standing up, turning around and setting the laptop down very pointedly on the table across from him. "You can join me… or you can email Leslie."

There wasn't any discussion unless you considered Andy grunting and jumping up, grabbing April and picking her up a discussion.


	13. Broken Noses and The Flu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's starting to become the norm for slightly later post-days but that should be fine (I hope). Anyways, this is a short bit of fluffy fun that I got in as a request on tumblr as "April and Andy take care of each other." Remember, you can always talk to me in comments, PM's, but probably the easiest would be [on tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Either way, enjoy!

"So do I just put the cold thing on your face or what?" Andy asked, tossing a small blue bag between his hands.

"I have a headache," April gave him a look and he set the compress on the kitchen counter. "That's for if I break my leg or something. Where'd you get it anyways?"

"I've got like three boxes of these," he explained, moving over to the couch and sitting down, "for when, y'know, I fall down and hurt myself."

April shook her head and sat back in the couch, rubbing her temples. That didn't seem to be helping but she always saw people doing that when they said they had headaches, so in the end all that did was tell April people were still full of shit. Andy moved again, bouncing on his feet as he bounded up off the couch.

"So, what do you want me to do?" he asked, smacking his hands together. "There's some bottles in the bathroom with pills in them that Burly says I'm not allowed to eat. Maybe those are good for headaches?"

"Something tells me no," she groaned. "I don't even know man, my eyes feel like they're on fire and I just want to sleep."

"Oooh, what about a massage?"

"Like, on my head?" April scrunched up her nose in confusion and shook her head. "No, that sounds weird."

"Yeah, you're right," he said seriously, scratching his face in contemplation. "I could play that weird music you like really loud – wait, no that's the opposite of what we want… right?"

April nodded slowly, hoping that the minimum amount of movement would get her idea across without her having to talk anymore. Blinking rapidly seemed to be helping a little bit but when Andy looked at her like she was about to sprout wings and fly away she stopped.

"Well, I'm fresh outta ideas babe," he slumped down next to her and threw an arm over her shoulder.

Andy's arm made the perfect spot for the back of her neck to nestle into, so April just dug backwards with her body until she was properly smashed up to Andy. Lolling her head back and blinking a few times, April already felt a little bit of pressure receding from her head. Pushing her head forward again she moved over to lay across one half of the couch and rest on Andy's side and shoulder.

"No, this seems pretty good," she mumbled into his shirt as she tried to ignore the lances of pain in her eyeballs.

 

* * *

  

April had never heard a grown man complain as much as Andy did, or at least when he had a broken nose. If it wasn't for his constant moaning she would have found his face covered in plaster hilarious, but when he kept pushing on his nose and crying out in pain she wanted to smack him.

"Ow, hey April… look at this!" he pushed at one of his nostrils causing a small crinkling noise to come from his nose. "Ow, God… that's so cool, right?"

"No Andy, ew stop," pulling her head away from him in mild disgust she pushed his hand aside. "You're gonna screw up your nose."

"Can that happen?" Andy asked, eyes going wide and hands stilled. "Can it get stuck, like my face?"

"Yep, that'll totally happen," she smirked. "If you keep doing that your nose will just… be stuck pointing the wrong way."

Immediately he dropped his hands to his side and April laughed a little. Sometimes he was so easy, she thought. He just joined in laughing, but still didn't move his hands at all from their position. April never made a concerted effort to make fun of him, unless she was incredibly mad at him then it was probably okay and mostly because he had no shame to speak of. Most times he got sick or hurt himself all she had to do was tell him something stupid like his face would stuck that way and he'd stop.

"Wait, so I could like break my nose and get a fake identity," he started, "and then, like, steal stuff and not get in trouble for it?"

April began a few sentences and stopping every time she got a few words in, not sure how to explain everything to him. Instead she just nodded.

"Does that mean we could get married as different people if you broke your nose?" he asked with a weird glint in his eyes.

"Maybe, but remember what I said Andy," she gave him a pointed look, expecting an answer.

"Yeah yeah, only when we do it and no closed fists," he nodded, smiling.

"Good job," April leaned over and kissed him, accidentally bumping into his nose resulting in another loudly voiced:

"Fuck!"

 

* * *

  

It was hard for Andy to think of his wife as anything but super hot, but if any situation were ripe for that it was hearing her hack up a lung into a toilet. He thought she'd just be immune to the flu from now on like he was, but Andy was apparently wrong. Very wrong if those noises were any indication.

"You okay in there?" he asked timidly.

"I've never puked this much in my life," she moaned in response. "How do you think I'm doing?"

He grimaced and walked back into the living room, sitting down and trying to block out the noises. Maybe he should get her some comfort food, like a pizza – but he shook that thought away remembering how well that went over the last time she was this sick. Andy never knew how to handle these situations other than sit on his hands and wait so he literally did that.

After a while she eventually came out of the bathroom looking even worse for wear than before going in. Turning around, she headed towards the bedroom where she would likely lie in bed for another day or two.

"Do you need anything?" he asked after her.

"The sweet release of death," she yelled without looking back.

"Okay, honey," Andy responded happily.

That usually meant he was supposed to leave her alone, so Andy left the house for practice. The last time he tried to help when she told him to scram just ended in anger and a few extra bruises. He was already an hour late, but hopefully Burly would understand. He did but they only had about twenty minutes before their scheduled time ended and the night shifts started, so Andy left quickly afterwards. Instead he spent the rest of the night drinking at the bar nearest the rehearsal space.

When he got back home, feet a little unsure and head totally bashed in from the alcohol, April was sitting on the couch and staring intently at the wall ahead of her.

"You… y'okay?" his speech was getting slurred as he sat down next to her.

"Fine," she answered. "Thanks for being cool about it."

"I… yep, you told me to go," he answered, nodding. "I'm a good husband."

"The best one," she answered, her head swaying back and forth seemingly without her consent, "like, ever."

"Aww, that's awe-"

He was going to say awesome or awesomesauce, at least that's what Andy thought the next day, but the thing about trying to accept compliments from your sick wife is that you want to try and avoid what he would begin to term as 'the blast radius.' It would take him a few cycles to get the smell out of his jacket and the stain was pretty much etched into their couch forever, but Andy knew that he at least did something right by ignoring April and drinking by himself.


	14. Inbetween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long day! Had a cool successful audition for a band, then I got home and remembered I had yet to write something for today. Oops! Well, I hope you like another brief one-shot of stitched together missing moments and "thoughts" during some of my favorite April/Andy scenes. Remember that you can always talk to me on here or [on tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) if you have feedback, requests, or just want to bullshit!
> 
> Enjoy!

People weren't really April's thing, and she had decided early on in her life that she would stick to just messing with them perpetually, but every once and a while someone wouldn't be the absolute worst. Leslie wasn't a total nightmare despite being one of the cheeriest, hardest working people on the planet. Ron should have been her dad in an alternate universe where humanity died off and they were the last two people left, living off the land and fighting the mutated aftermath of whatever nuclear hellscape they were left in. She guessed that there were a few other people that didn't bother her so much, except Andy – she hated Andy for how confused he made her.

"Hey," he would say in the morning to her, casually.

"Oh yeah, hi," was all she'd say and April would suddenly be sitting in one of the chairs next to someone getting their shoes shined.

He liked to smile, something April regularly fought against, and he made an awful lot of dumb jokes that made April laugh more at him than them but that never seemed to faze him. Every once and a while he'd say something stupid about Ann and April would get a weird, rolling feeling in her stomach that felt like an early warning of diarrhea but really just felt like anger at Ann. Well, more anger.

"D'you think she'd take me back if I built her another house?" he'd ask her honestly. "I mean I'd have to learn a lot about how to build stuff, but it could work."

"Maybe," April would mumble. "Or you could just avoid the she-beast altogether, that'd be pretty cool too."

Then he would laugh again and April would find herself fighting back another smile. Usually that was her cue to leave, if only because the urge to smack him and kiss him was at the same time overwhelming and sickening. Sitting at her desk she could at least pretend to not do work to distract her from any thinking about the dumb shoeshine guy. It didn't matter anyway, she thought, since he was so fixated on gross, old Ann.

 

* * *

 

In the cloud of fumes, Andy couldn't really remember many conversations he had with people that came to get their shoes shined. Most of the time he didn't remember many times he talked to people anyways, but he did like it when April was there talking to him. It was weird since she seemed so young and weird, but she smiled and laughed at his jokes so that was pretty cool.

"Yo," she yelled from down the hall, holding up two greasy looking bags.

She walked up to him and gave him one of the bags and the smell of ground beef soaked in oil met his nose.

"Awesome, this is the best," he shouted, grabbing a burger with one hand and pushing the guy on the chair aside with the other as he sat down. "This is the only thing that gets rid of the headaches."

"Yeah, I know," she answered quietly, sitting down on the other chair and pulling something out of her bag.

"Oh, cool," Andy smiled at her, forgetting that he'd been chewing just before.

"Gross," April said, but instead of sneering at him like Ann always did she took a bite out of her burger and gave him the same half-masticated grin.

"Eww," he drew his head back and laughed, joined by April.

Yeah, she was pretty freaking cool. At least until she seemed to act all weird when he was talking about Ann, but that didn't make sense. Everyone loved Ann – she was awesome. But April was awesome too, and before long Andy would get another headache and wonder why he didn't just always talk to April.

 

* * *

 

April had never felt so defeated when Andy left her at the bar, a look on his face so pathetic and almost grossed out. Sneaking into bars was usually easy, but for some reason the guy had been a dick. For a second April was convinced that she was just angry at the guy for booting her out, but then the anger started getting mixed with some other weird, foreign emotion. It almost felt like she was a little…  _sad_.

Sad? April didn't get  _sad_ over stupid dudes that stopped her from drinking, but she did feel a little broken that Andy had left her behind so easily. Betrayed – that was the word she walked away thinking. She felt betrayed by him, and felt a little better realizing that she could go to hating him.

Hating people was cool. Then, the next day, April sort of felt like crying and got even angrier at Andy.

 

* * *

 

_Too young, Dwyer_

Something was telling him to back off, to run away. But he wanted to stay and check out that cool bar April was talking about, and for a second Andy felt torn about what to do. He had to leave after that because the way she was looking at him like he was disappointed would have broken him on the spot, but Andy wasn't going to fall for it.

_Way too young_

He made up some dumb excuse and twisted around, pretending he didn't want to follow her to whatever sleaze bar was willing to accept them.

 

* * *

 

Something told him what he was doing was wrong. She was barely twenty-one and so much younger than him, or at least it seemed like an eternity of distance between them, but Andy had a hard time arguing with her when she was wearing that pinkish dress and looking at him expectantly. So he answered truthfully and if he wasn't sure that she'd already been drinking Andy would be damned if her face didn't flush at his answer.

That dress didn't really leave his mind for the rest of the night, and April smiling shyly at him was such a rare event it was basically etched into his mind forever. He liked doing that – making her smile – because it made him feel like less of a creep about liking her a lot.

 

* * *

 

Andy's brain melted a little bit when April kissed him. All he had wanted to do was try and make her not leave, because if anything was going to make his life suck it was definitely that. Then she did that weird thing with her arms that Ann did all the time and hooked them behind him, and it felt like she was inching closer and closer to him. It was a pretty awesome feeling.

"So, uhh, yeah?" he asked stupidly when she finally disconnected their lips. "Like…"

"Seems like it could be pretty cool," she said in a small voice, her eyes staying focused on his. "Right?"

"The coolest," he answered, grabbing her waist again and going in for another kiss.

Andy couldn't really think of anything better than dating April. He could win the lottery the next day and get a bunch of money, but if he had to spend all the money by himself it would get boring pretty fast – after like ten years of buying whatever he wanted, at least. He did think about how cool it would be to play on stage with Eddie Vedder but then April's tongue was in his mouth and everything seemed sort of hazy.

 

* * *

 

"We got married," April breathed into his neck, barely able to catch her breath.

"Best… idea…" Andy wasn't doing much better in that department, "ever."

He finally heaved a sigh, feeling his legs go a little limp and April leave a small trail of kisses on his shoulder when he slumped beside her. He asked her not to take off that dress they got married in, at least not for a little while, and looking at it lying on the ground beside the mattress he was pretty happy with his decision.

"All right," April spoke, already rolling over on top of him.

"Round two?" he asked, feeling a little tired until the blankets drooped and fell off of her shoulders above him. "Whatever, fuck it."

"That's the idea," April said, flashing him a brief smile.


	15. Target Practice and Fake Halloween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm realizing how reliant I am on the alternating POV, so I guess I need to work on that? Anyways, I've got a few things locked up for the next few days so I thought I'd get a short one in before things start to get angsty. Remember you can always talk to me here or [on tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) if you've got feedback, requests, or just want to shoot the shit.
> 
> Hopefully it's as fun to read as it was to write!

Some days April wondered if she made a mistake, or lots of mistakes based on her life – married barely into her twenties, somehow managing to stay at a job she had no right to have kept this long, and regularly forgetting to cash checks. To anyone else, living on a mattress instead of an actual bed and eating out of used Frisbees instead of plates would seem like a nightmare become hauntingly real. Even worse, they would be strapped to an overgrown child that didn't seem to have any ambition other than being way into sex and crayons.

Good thing for her that those people sucked, because at the same time she was thinking about how she might have made a mistake her husband shouted out from behind the couch with a pot on his head. He looked around for her, but she was peeking out from the side of the kitchen counter waiting for the perfect moment to strike. It didn't take long for him to get too comfortable with the apparent safety of the situation, leaning over the arm of the couch even further until April flung the egg directly at him. Her aim was too good, pinging him directly in the makeshift helmet.

"Dead," April yelled from behind the counter, leaping up. "One shot, one kill. Game over, man."

Andy followed suit, standing up to meet her hard gaze. On that warm Saturday morning neither of them seemed particularly into the idea of getting dressed, both of them in their underwear and thin shirts. And pots and pans armor, because of course you needed that – there was a sort of correlation between the amount of stuff that had to be cleaned afterwards with the fun they had. April could barely see, the black pan they used about once a year for making a ton of pasta sliding over her eyes every once and a while. A wicked gleam was in Andy's eyes and April knew revealing her position was a bad move, but her reflexes weren't up to par with her aim.

The egg smashed on her chest, spreading the runny yolk over the white shirt and cracked shell all around the kitchen floor.

"Bert Macklin didn't get this far by playing fair," Andy grunted, pulling shades from  _somewhere_ and donning them. "Your move now, Ludgate."

April scoffed at him, the incredible image of a slightly overweight man in nothing but boxers and a pot on his head washing over her for a second before readying another egg. When she tossed it this time he managed to avoid it, letting the wall behind him take the brunt of the damage. Turning around, Andy sprinted for the bedroom. Bounding after him, April made a mad leap and landed on his back, wrapping arms around his neck trying not to slide off his back with the help of the egg yolk.

"You never thought I'd follow you this far, did you Macklin?" she whispered into his ear. "You can run, but you knew we'd find you eventually."

"No one's ever tracked me to my secret base in Pawnee," he sighed. "I hope you know what this means though - I can't let you leave… at least, not alive."

April shook her head but didn't have much time to come up with a witty retort before Andy had grabbed her arms and swung her around to the front of him. Instinctively wrapping her legs around his waist, she gave him the wry smile that he knew all too well. Laughing, he threw his shades off and walked the both of them the rest of the way to the bedroom.

Sure, April  _wondered_ a few times what her life would be like if she hadn't gotten married to Andy but that alternate reality sucked ass. She didn't think about how long the smell of rotting eggs would be in the living room either, because that alternate reality where she actually cleaned up after their regular games  _also_ sucked.

 

* * *

 

There was never a second when Andy thought that marrying April was anything other than the coolest. Every once and a while the closest thing that he'd ever even considered that was when April seemed like she hated doing all the boring adult stuff. The first time he actually paid one of the bills all she did was groan and sulk on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and watching  _Courage the Cowardly Dog_ reruns at four in the morning. Andy didn't know a lot about how he was supposed to  _do_ a relationship or whatever, but he felt really weird changing the way he did things. Partially because he was worried changing at all would change how much April was into him, which scared Andy to death nearly every day though he'd never admit it.

"Which one do you like more?" April was holding up a Halloween costume and a terribly patchwork sweater in the other hand at the department store. "I think this one could with more severed heads, but I'm not sure."

"Well, if you wore the slutty vampire thing I'm pretty sure you'd be wearing it for about ten seconds," he answered, scratching his jaw in deep consideration. "But… the sweater looks like something a crackhead would wear."

"So you're saying the second one," she nodded, throwing the crappy packaged costume on the floor and putting the gross sweater in the cart. "You're right, but I really think this could do with some extra bloodstains though."

"Yeah, they'd really bring out your eyes," Andy answered looking around for the next aisle to visit.

April smiled and went ahead, looking at a little notepad and checking out each aisle. Andy had the boring groceries list and April was in charge of the festivities for the party. Sure they had days where they paid bills and went to work, having boring adult weeks, but then they'd throw an early-Fall pre-Halloween Halloween party like that night. Every year they had two parties – one before and on Halloween, but the first one was mostly to appease April since they never invited anyone to those – and every year the same repetitious agonizing over how boring everything was turning would dissolve into a morass of cheap beer and even cheaper fake guts.

The mundane things didn't bother Andy, and he knew that April liked at least some of them, so he had assumed some of those duties. Tossing cartons of cereal and gallons of milk into the cart was his job, and then April would slide a crate of Miller in with the rest of the stuff along with anything she had managed to scrounge up from the sparse offerings in early September.

"Find anything cool?" Andy asked, fingers tapping the cart impatiently.

"They had all the same dumb stuff from last year," April said, looking a little downcast. "The caplets weren't even there this time. How will we have a party without fake blood?"

"Don't you have like a lifetime's supply in the closet?" he had seen the crates in there and, to be honest, he was a little frightened of asking her why she had them.

"I popped all of them in Jerry's car last week," she mumbled. "He left his keys on his desk, and I kinda got carried away."

"Awesome!" he exclaimed, putting stuff on the little belt as the cashier checked out item after item, staring with dead eyes at the scanner.

"No, not awesome – I wanted to fill the bathtub this year," April stood waiting for every bag, moving them into the cart when the frail looking teenager working that night finally got finished. "You know that Elizabeth Bathory is, like, my role model. I wanted to try it out with the fake stuff before I got too invested."

"You know that's just a legend," a timid voice coming from the cashier interrupted. "She just killed-"

"Oh my God, this is why we do self checkout," April yelled, grabbing the remaining bags and storming off with the cart in her off hand.

Later that night, after Andy had driven them around all of Pawnee looking for any dollar store or department store looking for massive stocks of fake blood, April finally gave in and just dressed up in the weird sweater which Andy was starting to think was just some homeless guy's shirt based on there being no tag and smelling badly of hard liquor. At first she just sat on the couch, scowling and drinking. Andy tried everything from telling her how creepy she looked to telling her how sexy she looked, but none of it was working.

In a fit of desperation he searched her closet in the bedroom, hoping to find something. Sadly, April had definitely used  _all_ of those capsules (there had to be hundreds, he thought) and literally filled Jerry's car with the stuff. Andy wished he could have been there to see that.

"Sorry, babe," he said, slumping down next to her on the couch. "This year's not-really-Halloween Halloween sucks."

"I just wanted to know what it felt like to bathe in blood," she said sadly, dropping her head onto Andy's shoulder. "Is that too much to ask for?"

"Nah, I'm sure it woulda been hot," he took a sip from his beer and heard her chuckle. "And yeah, you really did use all that stuff, there's nothing left in your closet."

"Oh you shoulda seen it, I thought Jerry was gonna have another heart attack," April laughed into her drink. "He was all, 'oh my God, I just had it reupholstered!'"

Andy snorted, laughing at the image of Jerry waving his hands and getting excitable over something so dumb. April put her beer down and resumed her position, maneuvering her head so that she was facing Andy's cheek and apparently waiting for him. When he turned his head she gave him a half-smile that he returned for a second before the whiff of the sweater was caught in his nostrils again.

"Thanks for trying," she said, giving him a short kiss. "You're the best, y'know that?"

"Love ya," he said, feeling that familiar mixture of pride and short burst of happiness in his chest.

Worrying was never Andy's strong suit anyways, and April seemed happy to be sitting at home drinking with him and watching terrible fake skeletons slowly illuminate in the dark. He figured that would have to do, since the next day meant doctors' appointments and more  _adult_ things.


	16. Trial and Error

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is probably more on the 'lime' end of things, I guess? I dunno, it was fun to write. This was requested anonymously on tumblr. Remember that you can always talk to me here or [on tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) if you've got feedback, requests, or just want to talk.
> 
> Enjoy!

The first time they tried messing around in City Hall, things didn't go so well. Andy was sitting at his stand, twiddling his thumbs and waiting for April to come over. Usually she wasn't this late, and he was starting to get a little bored of sitting around. Just when he started to get a little worried, over what he didn't know, she appeared next to him.

"Hey, I got an idea," she said, grabbing him by the apron and running down one of the halls.

"What's up?" he asked, following her lead.

"Trust me," she answered, flashing him a wry smile.

Andy didn't know what it could be, but before he could ask further she had dragged him into a small closet. There was one shelf space framed against the wall, covered in cleaning supplies and a bucket in the corner but not much else. Looking around, wondering what was supposed to be happening, Andy was about to voice his confusion when April brushed aside most of the stuff on one of the lower shelves and leapt onto it, legs swinging and giving Andy a look that told him he'd better cross the gap and quickly.

"This is a pretty cool idea," Andy admitted, sliding his hands down to her sides and feeling her buck slightly into him from her position.

"Yep," was all she said, leaning in for a deep kiss and hooking her legs around him.

It didn't matter what she was wearing, but in the heat she had opted for a skirt and while the fabric hiked around her waist Andy couldn't have been happier for her decision. They had barely even started, Andy coming to grips with the fact that he was seconds away from staring at a topless April when the door swung open.

Freezing, April stared wide-eyed at something behind Andy. Craning his neck a little to see, he nodded to the janitor looking at them with a blank stare. It was almost like this was a daily occurrence for him judging by the annoyed look in his eyes.

"Why is it always on my fuckin' shelf…" he grumbled, picking up a box of something and turning around, muttering to himself and slamming the door behind him.

Andy couldn't stop laughing, and the mood didn't seem like it was going to pick back up any time soon, so they quietly left the small room and went back to work. So much for a good idea, Andy complained to himself.

 

* * *

 

The second time went even worse, if Andy thought about it hard enough. He could probably rank the first five times pretty easily, and the second attempt ended with even worse results. A few days after their sojourn to the closet, something had seemed to grab hold of April – and definitely had Andy. Trying to finagle sex at either April's house or Burly's was proving to be an insane task, and both of them were just about done with that.

"No one ever goes up here anyways," April explained, pushing him down into a chair by a desk on the third floor.

It was a dilapidated, nearly in shambles ruin of a floor. Every few steps you could trip on a toolbox, run face-first into a failing light-fixture, or step on  _something_ stuck to the floor. Andy didn't want to know what those somethings were.

"But-"

"Andy, are you really about to argue?" April asked, crouching in front of him, silencing him immediately.

This time things didn't even  _start_  because the moment she had said that a voice came from the hallway leading towards the stairs. Andy didn't have time to rearrange himself, trying to get his jeans all the way back on when he saw the small frame and blonde hair that signified Lelsie enter the room April had chosen. Behind her was a group of young looking children, and Andy was fumbling the pants-job.

"And this, is where Pawnee will be putting a new-" Leslie stopped short, turning around when some of the kids stared behind her.

The look on her face was almost matched by the confused looks on the children. April crossed her arms and stood up quickly, looking back and forth between Andy and Leslie. Andy panicked, pulling his jeans up and holding them in place as he ran out of the room. April followed suit, smacking his back and yelling. At the bottom of one of the stairwells, April looked a little shell shocked by the situation they had just escaped.

"Whatever, it's fine," Andy tried, but April gave him a look like he had just sprouted another head.

"Fine?" she said, "Andy, a bunch of kids almost saw me giving you a blowjob, that's less than awesome. I'm gonna hear from Leslie for weeks about this…"

"Yeah, that'll suck," he nodded and chuckled at his own pun.

Andy was pretty disappointed, but he figured they couldn't be interrupted  _again_  right? Right?

 

* * *

 

The next two times, they tried the fourth floor. April's sister, when she was around, had been haranguing them at her house and refused to leave the two of them alone so that basically nixed the April's house vector and she was pretty sure they'd get arrested in the Best Buy if they tried anything. So, without much of a choice, they headed to the fourth floor to find a secluded meth den or hobo's abandoned blankets to use.

It shouldn't have surprised Andy that when they did find somewhere that seemed relatively quiet and secluded, a short man rolled into the room, mumbling and taking swigs from a bottle. April jumped up from the desk and Andy stood up, wiping a hand across his mouth and shaking his head.

"Just here for the show," the old man grumbled, slumping into a chair. "I 'eard from Joe about you two."

April, who was still flushed from before the creepy old voyeur interrupted them, grabbed his bottle and walked out of the room. Andy followed suit, shrugging his shoulders when the man gave a hoarse yell. Running out of the room before he tried anything, Andy caught up to April and took the bottle from her.

Not willing to give up, and a little anxious, April pushed him into another hallway that seemed empty enough. Looking through a few windows she spotted an office space that was open and looked vacant for the time being. Shoving herself through the doorway, she grabbed Andy by the hand and led him over to the desk. Sitting on it, she none too gently grabbed his head and guided him back down to his knees.

"Hey, babe, I don't wanna alarm you, but-"

"Andy, if you stop I swear to God," she snarled.

Andy shrugged but pointed through one of the windows, where the same old man was staring intently through the sole window of the office. Clamping her legs shut, April returned his stare with an intensity that made Andy a little worried for the well being of that man.

Stomping her way out of the abandoned space, Andy followed and hoped that the old man wouldn't be there the next day. This was beginning to get really old.

 

* * *

 

April had enough, and she was proving a point. Leslie and Tom had left for a short meeting, and here she was rutting herself against Andy on her desk. It was getting tiring having to walk around her house and be followed by her sister, or have Andy's creepy drummer stare at her all the time. Four times they'd already been interrupted and she needed to blow off some steam, so here they were.

"I feel real weird about this," Andy said, looking around the room and at the closed blinds like they would spring open to reveal Jerry. "Leslie's super cool, but-"

"Andy, I'm going to have sex with my boyfriend," she panted, unbuckling his belt, "who happens to be you, and we're gonna do it on this desk, so you really need to stop talking."

"Trust me, I really," and he stopped to take a breath when the cold air hit his bare legs, " _really_ want to do this, but couldn't we, like, go out on a lunch break? This is… weird."

April stopped moving, looking down at the papers she was sitting on. Sighing, she pushed Andy away from her and shook her head, face downcast.

"Well, we could… like," Andy shrugged his shoulders and continued, "we could, like, go somewhere else."

"We could break into Ann's house," April nodded.

"No, that sounds weird too," Andy frowned.

"You're right, I might get Ann-butt on me," she bit the inside of her cheek in contemplation. "We could find a super gross motel room."

"I'm broke," Andy said sheepishly.

"Who said we had to pay?" she grinned. "That shitty Pawnee Lodge or whatever doesn't even lock, like, half the rooms."

Andy smiled as he finished putting his belt back on. Grabbing her hand, he dashed out of the office with her in tow. Even if the doors were locked, at this point they'd figure it out. If they had to kick Burly out of his own house Andy was pretty sure that April would be capable of it and they could probably get Natalie out of the house if they  _really_ tried. Andy was so desperate he didn't even care what they did at that point, and neither did April.


	17. Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is from an anonymous request on tumblr. It's a little angsty at first, a little dark and probably really melodramatic but hey - that's what I do. I hope you guys like it, but it'd be real awesome if I got feedback. I love feedback, it makes doing this every day so worth it. You can talk to me wherever, but [on tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) is probably your best bet.
> 
> Enjoy!

Andy spends all day in that room, and some days he knows he should leave to get food or get a shower but he can't bring himself to do it. Everyone's so used to seeing energetic, excited Andy that they're taken aback when they talk to him. He can't blame them since half the time he can barely stand up, sitting by a hospital bed and holding onto a pale hand, hopeful.

That day had been a regular, normal day: Johnny Karate gigs, lunch break with April, and sitting around waiting for April to get home after work. Over lunch they talked about ordering a pizza and eating it naked in the living room, just like when they first dated. They had a great marriage, but that sounded more fun than anything they'd done in weeks. He got a little worried when she took a few minutes longer than usual to get home, but figured she'd call him if something popped up. When she didn't, and when April didn't answer and no one knew what was going on either, there was a sharp bite of anxiety in his chest that didn't want to go away.

He remembers reading the text from Leslie a few minutes later, taking in every word. The phrase  _car crash_ was just a collection of words to Andy before, and the idea of a coma was just something that had happens to people in those dumb Lifetime movies Ann always used to watch. Andy had been hit by three cars in his life and he was always fine – but April didn't walk away from this one with a broken arm. The entirety of the situation wasn't quite dawning on Andy since he was waiting for her to just wake up from a quick nap and go back home with a cast on or something.

They said head trauma and her heart were two of the problems and she wasn't getting air to her head or something. Andy memorizes most of the diagnosis on the first day they come up with it and asks a thousand questions about her. Andy recalls something about heart arrhythmia and oxygen, but a bunch of other large words are there too and for the life of him he can't breathe and remember them at the same time. He just knows that she's stable on the first night, so he goes home when they order him to and pretends he's going to be fine when Leslie and Ben ask him about it.

"How's she doing?" Leslie asks quietly, and Andy tries not to look her in the eyes because her voice is a shambles and Andy doesn't want to think about it.

"Fine," he croaks, not realizing how dried his throat is, "I mean, besides the part where she's in a coma she's fine."

Leslie gives him a hug and for a second Andy doesn't want to let go. There are other people there too, and they're all earnest when they talk to him, but Leslie just pats him on the back and gives him a warming kiss on the cheek. Andy smiles and thanks her, internally forcing himself to drive and stop shaking when his hands grip the steering wheel.

He's never felt like this before, and he doesn't know how to process any of the information from that day. Going home, it's just Champion there waiting for him. Together they watch some of those bad TV Land reruns April always liked, and Andy orders the pizza but can barely even get through two bites before putting it down. He falls asleep the first night hoping it was just a bad dream, scratching the back of Champion's ears and pretending he'll wake up to April's really awful morning breath burning his nostrils. He doesn't though, and waking up in the middle of the night he's suddenly hyperaware and wrapped in too many blankets. Something like that anxiety is back inside of Andy and he doesn't know how to handle it, but he's pretty sure his eyes are watering.

"Hey," he says, tapping Champion awake, "let's go outside."

The dog looks almost as tired as Andy feels, but the two of them get up and head outside in the frigid Pawnee night. It takes him about ten minutes to realize that Champion isn't going to do anything, but Andy still does a few circles around the block. His hands are gripping the leash too hard, knuckles mere millimeters from erupting through skin. The poor animal looks like he's freezing, giving Andy that look of sadness-near-disappointment and he takes a deep breath before heading back inside. Falling back into bed, Andy sleeps facing the wrong way just so he doesn't have to look at the other side of the bed that night.

He really doesn't want to believe it.

He cancels all of the Johnny Karate shows he has the next day, angering most of the mothers and fathers. Andy doesn't know what to do, since usually April would help him and they'd figure out a great solution together like partners in crime except the crime was to make a bunch of little kids happy. When he goes to visit April, she looks the same as the day before – almost like she's asleep but Andy knows she snores and she frequently falls asleep with her mouth half open. Instead April's just sort of  _there_  and Andy doesn't know what to do other than sit down in one of the insanely uncomfortable chairs, rest his head on his palms, and sit there.

"Hey," he tries because he doesn't like the idea of it being so quiet in that room.

When she doesn't answer him, lying back in the cot with her eyes closed, Andy lets go. Soon he's holding her hand, hoping she'll return his grip and he's smiling and feeling something hot and warm trail down his face. Someone enters at some point and tells him she's lucky, because there's a good chance she'll recover. For an instant he's hopeful, but then they say it could be a few months at the very best before they see any signs of awareness.

Now, sitting in the room like he did nearly every day for the past three months, Andy thinks back on those words. Still nothing, and still Andy pretended he was fine. He was definitely fine living without his partner in crime while she sat nearing brain death in a hospital, and no one was going to eke anything else out of him.

"Hey Andy," it's Leslie with lunch, just like every day, "let's go out today?"

"Nah, I think I'll just eat here again Leslie," he answers, grabbing the bag from her hand and sitting back down.

"Okay," she says knowingly, leaving and closing the door.

Andy pretends the last few months haven't been a waking nightmare, telling himself that he can totally live without April even if it's  _at best_ a few months. That's what he tells himself and when he gets to that last bit he very nearly chokes on his food at the thought, forcing it down and remembering that the doctors are adamant about her chances. When he goes home at night, being forced out by the scolding nurses and cold PA's Andy tries to write songs to take his mind off things but all of them are super dreary sounding and he just wants to sleep afterwards. Tom insists he come down to the restaurant for free food – it was half off at first but Donna nearly strangled him when he said that – but Andy spends all his time inside or at the hospital. Sometimes he does Johnny Karate shows and at first he feels better seeing the little faces of those kids light up, but then he looks around for April who always claps for him and looks at him like she's just so  _proud_ to be with him. He can't find her in the crowd – neither her nor that look and smile – and then he remembers everything again. He usually doesn't go back to play for a few weeks after that.

Waiting for the good news every day, Andy sits in that room for another two months.

"Mr. Dwyer?" a very old doctor enters one day, someone whose name he doesn't really remember. "I've got some great news for you."

"Yeah?" he asks, knowing full well this is just another checkup.

"Well, we've seen some notable improvement," she flips open a metal clipboard and looks down. "I can't give you a hard date because – and I hate to be frank – it's still impossible to know, but there are signs indicative of heightened awareness."

Andy doesn't know what many of those words mean bunched up together the way they are, but he's learned what 'heightened awareness' means. It's minor, and it could just be a fluke because it's certainly happened before, but Andy feels his insides do a twist and he wants to run up and down the hall until she wakes up.

"Thanks," is all he says instead, nearly choking on the word.

He immediately texts Leslie the news, who just sends him one of those little punctuation smiley-faces, and he feels himself grin a little in response. Although the others tried to talk to him and none of them were remotely trying to gussy up their feelings, Leslie usually just sat with him and was there for him to talk to. She never asked for anything more and if Andy knew better he'd guess it was much for her as it was for him. On the second day back from the hospital he visited Leslie at City Hall, unsure of what to do with himself. She asked him if he wanted to go see something that always made her feel a little better and they spent a good hour sitting on the bench in front of one of the murals. Leslie was rubbing his back while he said a bunch of nonsense, but she just sat there and responded with knowing acknowledgments and agreements. He didn't feel much happier afterwards but to him Leslie felt like one of the few people he could confide in since he wasn't going to be telling all of this to Ron any time soon.

"H-Hey," he struggles to get out even though he's been told countless times she simply won't respond to him.

Putting the phone back in his pocket, he takes April's hand again and hopes that this is the part where she can react to physical sensation. He's smiling a little, feeling hopeful again even though he knows that the last time this happened and she relapsed he very nearly had a meltdown in the hospital. Even so he doesn't care because life is boring without April and if there's anything Andy is, it's hopeful.

 

* * *

 

It's another week, then more good news. At one point her eyelids flutter open and then close again quickly, causing Andy to shout at the top of his lungs. A nurse calls in a doctor and when Andy explains what happened he smiles and writes something down. A few days pass and Andy swears he sees her eyes move beneath their lids, but that's dismissed. Still, he knows that she looked at him when he talked to her.

Johnny Karate makes a triumphant return, doing six shows in one weekend and Andy manages to get through them thinking about the tiniest little movement he felt from April's fingers on that Friday. One of the mothers thanks him and asks if he can do a show for her sister's kids the next week, and Andy says of course. He's never felt better. At home he flops down on the couch and is joined by Champion.

"Hey bud," he scratches the dog's ears and talks to him in an excited tone, "mom's gonna be home soon."

The dog perks his ears a little, and Andy nods vigorously in response. April tells him that the dog can't really understand what they're saying, but he knows Champion gets this since Andy wasn't the only one missing her. That night Andy shares a pizza with the dog, giving him a slice and watching him tear apart the crust on the floor, and Andy smiles to himself.

A few days pass and it happens.

Andy sits on the uncomfortable chair, telling jokes to April. She doesn't respond, and Andy knows she's still only bare at any level of conscious self-awareness, but he can't help himself. The doctors have been telling him it'll be any day and Andy is so impatient to talk to her again – to see that face when he finishes up a gig or her wide, dimply smile that she saves only for him – that he gets carried away with it. So carried away that he almost doesn't notice when April opens her eyes and looks around, almost frightened.

She takes a few heavy breaths and it's almost like she's hyperventilating (something Andy became a little too familiar with for the first few days), but then she calms down. Andy tries to say a few things to her but she doesn't respond, still looking over every detail of the room like she'd never seen a chair or windows before. When a doctor rushed in, Andy was starting to get scared that this was one of those situations he was warned about – all up and at 'em for a few seconds but not really "awake." The idea terrified him.

"Do you know where you are?" the doctor asks, looking directly into April's eyes.

She nods in response.

"Can you answer with a yes, please?"

"Yes," she manages to squeak out, and in that instant Andy feels like he could move a mountain with his bare hands.

"Good," he says, smiling before making her follow his finger with her eyes. "Now, do you know who I am?"

"A doctor," she says slowly, and Andy hears the sweetest thing in her voice – budding annoyance.

"Do you know who he is?" without looking the doctor points to Andy.

For a second Andy remembers that sometimes people forget things when they go into comas, or at least that's what Ann's dumb movies always said, and the doctors had told him she could have very acute memory loss for a few minutes. They said depending on that, they could gauge her recovery. When April turned to look at Andy, he thought his ribs were going to shatter from his erratic breathing. He smiles to her and a grin splits across her face, and Andy could only think of that proud look and he almost passed out.

"Yeah, I know Andy," she says and Andy makes a noise he didn't know was possible.

They don't let her leave for a while, but Andy doesn't care because she's talking to him and asking him a bunch of questions. She's not vibrant or anything, but when has she ever been, and she seems like sometimes she's going to just fall asleep but again he doesn't really care. April's sitting up in the bed and asking questions, laughing at his jokes, and smiling. Another several days pass like this, just the two of them, before April's finally given the okay to go home. Before they leave Andy lets people know that April's doing fine and he makes sure to add ten thousand of those little smiling emotes in his group text.

Waiting in the room for their ride – Leslie – to show up, she asks him how things have been going and he lies better than he thinks he ever could because the last thing she needs to know is how miserable he's been. At first she smiles but then she asks how he's actually been, and Andy wants to break down – he wants to tell April that a few times he didn't know what he was supposed to do.

"It was hard, yeah," he admits finally, "but… I, I didn't know, y'know?"

"Some of the nurses told me you were in this room, like, a  _lot_ ," she puts so much emphasis on that word and smiles in sequence with it that Andy gets a little embarrassed and just chuckles.

"Okay, it was really hard," he says, scratching the back of his neck. "Life sucks ass without you, y'know."

April doesn't really talk about it, mostly because Andy doesn't thinking to ask her what it was like for the past few months, and he doesn't care at all. Later in the day Leslie comes by, and Andy wants to crush her in his hug because he's so happy. He wanted to do the same with April but he something tells him to wait until they let her leave, so he gets by when Leslie runs in and starts spewing forth questions and looking like she's never been happier. Andy feels the same way and April looks like she's going to get tired just from Leslie's presence, but she still smiles and seems to be actually perking up.

"Okay, well I have to go but," Leslie walked over and gave April a short hug, "you are amazing and so is Andy and both of you are the greatest people I've ever met, and I-"

She was talking as she left the room, but Andy wasn't really paying attention to what she had to say. He was too busy looking at April like she was going to disappear any second and he needed to memorize every detail of her face. He tries to follow her eyes when she looks down and mumbles something, but can't quite recall what it was about when she gives him another wide smile.

"I'm super happy to talk to you again," he mutters.

"Yeah," she responds quickly, but they're interrupted by a doctor before they can say anything else.

Luckily for them April wouldn't have long-lasting disabilities or future issues if they went in for physical rehabilitation once a week. She nods in response to everything, and Andy doesn't know what he's supposed to do with everything broiling inside of him. Andy didn't even really pay attention to much of what the doctor was saying because all he could think about was taking April home and ordering that pizza.


	18. April and Ann

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I almost missed today! I had a lot of stuff that needed done and when I went to write in my normally slotted chunk to work through these I couldn't figure out anything that felt right today. Thankfully I had a quick burst of inspiration. Not quite a shippy 'shot, but the current of April/Andy is there and I like writing Ann. Also, be sure to chuck me some feedback, requests, or whatever you want in whatever inbox you can find though your best bet is [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Enjoy!

If there was anything that April  _really_ truly loathed about her job, it was when Ann came to visit Leslie. On top of being overwhelmingly nice to her at times, April still had a deeply rooted hatred for the woman at causing her to be  _jealous_  over Andy's affections. Jealousy wasn't even really the emotion, but April couldn't really figure out what to call the feeling of liking someone and having them make it seem like they didn't really care. It was so stupid, but April still resented her for that weird series of emotions despite being pretty certain that Andy didn't have eyes for anyone else. Luckily for April, Ann decided that the very day April was thinking about how much she actually didn't like Ann the nurse would talk to her.

"Hey April," she said, a little too happily and  _ugh_ April just wanted to find a pencil and drive into her stupid eyeballs, "Leslie said she's gonna be a few so I'll just wait here, okay?"

"Why don't you just meet her wherever you're going?" April asked, pleading and hoping that Ann would see the wisdom in her words and just leave her alone.

"She told me to wait here since we're just going to be-"

"Whatever," April interrupted and shrugged her off and looked back at her magazine, pretending she wouldn't have to be in Ann's presence much longer, "just don't talk and everything will go great."

There were a few minutes of beautiful silence where April thought that maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have to talk to Ann for another day. Those were some pretty great days, she thought. However, that was only a pipedream when she heard Ann cough a little.

"I know you're still… upset," she started and April just stared at Donna's desk in the hopes that she would just stop talking, "about the whole thing with Andy and you and, um, me I guess. But you don't have to worry about that since he's not-"

"Oh my God, stop," April lamented, shaking her head. "I don't care what you think you have to apologize for, just please don't talk to me."

Ann quieted for a second and smiled awkwardly and April just wanted anything else than to be there in that moment. She was sure that Ann was only going to have something mushy and wishy washy to say about whatever it was she thought needed to be said and there was no way she could handle that level of  _conversation_  with Ann. Pushing herself back into her chair, picking the flimsy magazine back up, and turning to a new random page, April put on her best concentrated face and hoped Ann would just disappear. Preferably from the planet but City Hall would also do.

It seemed that Ann had heeded her words for a little bit but then April started to feel a little weird about the silence and, as a consequence, got even angrier at Ann for making her feel something once again. As if noticing her annoyance the older woman spoke up.

"I know we're not friends and that's probably for the best," Ann started, nodding when April did the same, "but I think this should totally be out there – you don't have to worry about me and Andy."

"Wow thanks, Ann," April snorted, laughing at the idea.

"What's so funny?" Ann asked, crossing her arms and looking annoyed in her own right.

"That you think I have to  _worry_ ," and April put a lot of emphasis on that word by waving her hands, "about you and Andy. That's a pretty good one Ann."

"Dude, you might be weirdly intimidating and scary but I think I know jealousy when I see it," and April took a deep breath because how the  _fuck_ did she know that, "and it's cool. It's actually pretty awesome you care about Andy that much to still be mad at me for… whatever you think happened. Y'know, it coulda been a 'what if' situation for the rest of your life or something."

April wanted to throttle her – she was kind of right. Sure she didn't think of things in that same way, especially not the whole what if thing because that made it sound like April was one of those gross girls in shitty epistolary literature, but underneath all of that there was a kernel of truth that April wanted to ignore with all of her being. She couldn't agree with Ann on something, especially when it put Ann in the dominating position.

"Yeah, that's obviously what it is," April folded up the magazine and laughed. "I'm sure all I'd be worrying about right now is how to get into the dumb shoeshine guy's pants. Oh wait, no that's not what I'd be thinking because I'm not an airhead like you, Ann."

"Okay then tough guy," she nodded knowingly and April never felt more infuriated in her life at such an innocuous motion, "but seriously, you make Andy really happy. I may not want to date him or even really be around him all that often anymore, but it's still cool to see  _both_ of you happy."

There was a second – a fleeting, disgusting microcosm of time – where April felt her lips twitch as if attempting to force a smile. No matter what, she had to keep straight faced. Then, without realizing it, April had a gnawing urge to say something to Ann and she would be willing to pay anyone anything in order to not say a word.

"Thanks," she whispered, hoping Ann wouldn't notice and she could get away with sort of saying something but not really.

"What's that?"

_Fuck._

"Nothing," April said hastily, trying to filter through thousands of pre-prepared insults but finding all of them wanting for the scenario. "I said nothing, I don't talk to hookers."

"I'm pretty sure you just said thanks," Ann giggled –  _giggled_ – and April wanted to figure out why she hadn't already run away from this banshee.

April stood up, looking down at the ground to avoid the attempts from Ann to catch her gaze.

"Whatever, you're not the worst I guess," and April started for the door quickly before Ann got any ideas about their exchange. "Oh God, I think I have to vomit."

Behind her Ann's laughter sounded like a demon's wail, taunting her in victory, but at the same time April did think about how awesome Andy was. That made the bile in her throat simmer down a little, and April wondered if she should be angrier at Ann or not. Deciding to figure it out later, she made her way to Andy's stand to see what he was doing.


	19. Amazing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had intended to finish writing something else to fulfill a different prompt, but then some anon left me a _ridiculously_ cute prompt on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask). I took a little liberty with the nature of it, but I hope it turned out okay. Remember that if you get any ideas, or you have any sort of feedback, you can talk to me anywhere. I'm, like, totally friendly and stuff.
> 
> Enjoy!

Andy liked to think that he knows his wife better than almost anyone but he's never been able to do so well when she's sick. Sometimes April relished in staying home, laying in bed, and sat around watching TV and eating everything in the house she can get her hands on and other times it's like every time Andy talks to her he's the devil incarnate. There must be one of those weird instinct things in him because when she's sick he feels like trying a bunch of different stuff to make her feel better and at this point in his life it's all a crapshoot whether it works out or not. That day all she said was that she didn't feel like going to work, so she didn't. For all of her bluster April didn't miss a whole lot of work days despite whatever she'd say to the contrary, and Andy knew the look of that weird sick that almost looked like a hangover all too well.

The previous few weeks April had gotten sick a few days every week and never seemed to get better throughout the day. In fact, as the day wore on, April just seemed to get worse and stay in a constant state of grouchy discontent until the next morning. She had been a bit distant with Andy too, and that bothered him but he just chalked it up to something important at work and tried not to think too much about it. Usually when he over thought things all that came out of it was a lot of anxiety and a bunch of headaches, and Andy hated feeling like something bad was about to go down in their marriage. That day, April looked the same as she did the last few weeks – sort of pale, groggy, and refusing to get up for hours at an end.

"Okay, there's a bunch of pop tarts in the toaster and a bowl of chili in the microwave," Andy started, checking off things on his hand with a marker, "and I think there's still a can of soup… somewhere in here."

Somehow there was still food in the house, which would forever mystify Andy. They barely ate anything other than take-out or stuff they stole from the City Hall cafeterias and usually most of the stuff that was sitting around had to be at least a few weeks beyond edible. Even so, he didn't like just leaving without doing something and since April looked like she would scream if he talked to her for more than a few seconds Andy decided prepping some food was the best he could do.

"Ugh, that all sounds gross," she turned her nose up to his list but didn't say anything else on the subject.

"Well, I gotta go honey, so I uh… I'm gonna go do that," he leaned down and gave her a peck on the temple before starting to turn around.

He still felt awkward leaving her like that, but she was a grown woman (she had told him as much the last time he tried to be super helpful) and he was just going to get in her way – again – so Andy had to pretend he wasn't going to care about it all day. All he could do was make sure that there was a bunch of water bottles near the bed and a clear path to the bathroom.

"Andy, don't go," she moaned, her eyes still closed and her body all rolled up in every one of the blankets they had.

"I've got, like, two shows to do this morning, babe," he said, going back to quickly sit down on the bed and rub her shoulder. "I'll be home in a few hours."

"Who cares, screw Johnny Karate," she complained and grabbed his hand, pulling it into hers and tugging lightly.

"Babe, these are really paying a lot-"

"Fine," April interrupted, pushing Andy's hand away and curling up into a ball underneath the covers.

There was always something really effective about that play, about April getting the idea into her head that he just didn't care, and it always worked. Andy had never been able to beat that move and she knew it, and he knew how often she'd try it just to win an argument. Usually though April never put on as much of a show, so Andy took a deep breath and slipped off his shoes and the pants he was wearing.

Crawling into the bed beside her, Andy pulled her closer into him and wrapped his arms around her stomach. He felt her hands move back into his and Andy instinctively put his head on her shoulder to look at her. April and Andy wouldn't admit to it but, between the two of them, cuddling was pretty awesome. Andy liked the way April would sometimes grind a little against him, or smile when she felt him enfold her entire body in his, and April wasn't going to let anyone take that togetherness away from her for anything.

"So, what's the plan here," Andy whispered, resting against April and wondering what schemes they could cook up in total silence. "Do we uh… like, do it or watch TV and make out or-"

"No, this is good," she mumbled.

"Cool," was all Andy said.

Lying there, with April nestled right next to him Andy wondered how crazy some people could be. With that smile still stuck to her face, losing a few hours' worth of money wasn't at all a big deal to Andy. He had heard from so many of his friends and family that he should be ready for when the love sort of dies down in their marriage and be prepared for when he just hates April's guts, but Andy simply couldn't fathom that. It wasn't even that he thought he was different from anyone else in that way or that it was somehow going to be different for them – Andy literally couldn't comprehend not liking April and certainly didn't get the idea of not being insanely in love with her. It wasn't an uncertainty. It was an impossibility not to want her every day. He figured that well into their sixties they'd be playing pranks on kids on Halloween and trying to convince their neighbors they were ghosts. Hell, they did that already and that would only get funnier as they got older.

"Did you drink a lot last night or something?" Andy asked, suddenly curious as to why she was so… destroyed that morning. "I didn't think you had much, there were only like two beers in the fridge…"

Now that he said it out loud, it became apparent that April had been turning down drinks an awful lot lately. She never did that – usually she was completely gone by the time Andy had only gotten a few drinks in him.

"No Andy, that's not it," she spoke slowly. "That's not it."

April rolled over and looked at him intently, something that had about a fifty-fifty success rate in terms of this being something good. Andy didn't know if this made the odds better or worse but his head was starting to hurt thinking about it so all he did was crane his neck in response.

"Y'know how I've been getting sick… like, a lot lately?" she asked, and Andy was starting to notice something weird about the way she was talking and looking at him.

"Yeah, sure," he answered, repositioning himself so that they were facing eye-to-eye.

April didn't show lots of emotion to other people, except when it was times like this, only when it was just Andy around, and then she became a little different – different in a way that made Andy feel important and special having known this side of April. When she finished asking the question, her voice did that sort of lilting sound where she sounded like she had trouble breathing and her face was trying to fight back a smile – Andy knew that look really well by this point – and at this point Andy figured that this was, at the very least, good news.

"And you know how I said I was gonna try something last month?" she asked again, biting her lip and not even attempting to hide the smile now.

Andy did remember her saying that but he just figured she was going to try a different sandwich for lunch or something. He was starting to feel a little clueless about where this was heading and it kind of frightened him. Andy knew April saw that in his face when she covered the minute distance between them and put her lips to his ear and whispered:

"I'm pregnant."

Sometimes Andy had this dream, or at least something like it where he and April would go back to the Grand Canyon and do it in the middle of the crater, and then he'd wake up around this time when she said she was pregnant. Expecting to wake up, he quickly closed his eyes and opened them back up, expecting to find Champion panting in his face and looking at him expectantly. Instead, April was still there with her little grin and looking like she was searching his face for a response to that bombshell.

Realizing that it wasn't a dream, and having a million different thoughts running through his head, Andy thought his brain was just going to shut off for a moment. In a sort of sensory overload all he could do was keep his mouth open and gape dumbly at her. Every muscle in his body was going into action, demanding to be used to pick April up off of the bed and run down the streets of Pawnee screaming about the new information. His brain was quickly trying to sort through every reaction it could and everything was coming to a screaming, grinding halt when he couldn't figure out what to do.

"That's… wow, are you sure?" Andy asked. "Like, you're sure you're pregnant? And I mean like really, super duper baby-inside-of-you pregnant and not adopting weird Eastern Europeans 'pregnant?'"

"Yes, it's the gross baby-in-the-gut pregnant," she answered him before her face dropped noticeably and she looked a little unsure. "It's cool that I did that, right? You're not mad at me-"

"Mad… at you for – I, what?" Andy could barely start sentences now let alone finish them. "This is the  _coolest_ thing you have ever done, babe. You got secret pregnant – with me!"

"It's not like it was a secret, I was dropping hints, like, months ago dude," she chuckled.

Thinking back on it, Andy did realize it was kind of weird that April suddenly wanted to be talk to Leslie and Ron by herself a lot more. She even talked to Ann at one point which should have been the real red flag for him, but Andy was too busy to notice it. At some point he figured that they just wouldn't have kids and while he was kind of upset at that, Andy just let it go and tried to focus on the awesome marriage instead. Being married to April and having no kids would be way better than being married to someone awful and having them anyways, so it wasn't really that hard.

"Yeah, well it's still awesome. Holy crap, I'm gonna be a dad," he whispered and didn't realize how cool of a feeling those words could have until he said them. "I'm gonna be a kid's dad and you're gonna be their mom. Dude, this is great."

"Totally," April answered, still smiling.

With that smile she destroyed every hint of worry over April not wanting kids. Then a thought came to Andy and he couldn't shake it for the life of him despite wanting to do nothing more than sit there and think about how amazing their child would be.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" he wondered, sincerely curious why she would keep that information from him.

"I don't know, I got sort of scared I guess," she admitted, looking away from him for a second. "Like, I didn't know if I really wanted to be a mom but when it finally sort of… happened, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I didn't know it felt so awesome, I always thought it would be gross."

"Me too, but now we can do this super gross thing together," Andy said, grinning broadly.

"It's gonna be such a disgusting baby," April whispered, eyes darting between his lips and his eyes.

"Totally," was all he could say before the desire to lean in and kiss her again was too overwhelming.

All of the potential thoughts and worries were swirling in Andy's head but he couldn't the image of April holding up two tiny little arms while their kid walked out of there. He imagined seeing her face light up when a child said something to one of them for the first time, and he was going to pretend that thought alone wasn't enough to send his mind reeling with excitement. He never thought of himself as a sappy guy, but Andy couldn't stop thinking about the kid – their child.

It was, quite simply put, amazing.


	20. Yesterday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a really long night (partying on a Wednesday is for cool people) so this took a while to get through. Anyways, I was listening to Atmosphere’s “Yesterday” and suddenly had a thought – we don’t know what happened to Andy’s dad do we? Maybe I'm wrong and I missed something in which case I accept all the hatemail. So, here comes some wangst. I hope it’s all right since that song really did a number on me (I highly recommend listening to it while reading this).
> 
> Anyways, remember you can hit me up on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) for requests, feedback, or whatever you want!

Andy didn't know how to handle the phone call. He was a little annoyed that his mom called him so early in the morning, and how she even got a hold of his cell number was sort of beyond him. He was having an awesome dream, jumping on stage to take over for Dave Matthews and finishing out the set because Dave had said he was the best singer he'd ever heard. Andy was kind of pissed that she interrupted that but then his mother started talking and everything seemed to melt.

 

* * *

 

For the first week April figured that dating Andy would just be a whirlwind of fun even if she did find herself now developing weird emotions towards him that were a little beyond wanting to party, but that day he had been incredibly distant. That certainly wasn't what April ever anticipated from him – to be honest she wasn't even sure Andy could have an emotion that fell anywhere near the "sad" spectrum of things. In the morning he shrugged her off and at first she was a little angry but the look in his eyes was a little different than she was expecting – he wasn't looking at her like there was boredom in his eyes or that he was even annoyed with her. It was so  _unusual_ but April swore that he looked like he just wanted to be left alone. So she did, going to work and trying to figure out why Andy was being so hesitant.

Later in the day she went and bought one of the massive hamburgers the cafeteria sold, hoping she could figure it out with him over a greasy lunch. She found him at his stand, twiddling his thumbs and playing with the little "out for lunch" sign sitting on the counter.

"Hey Andy," she tried at lunch, putting the tinfoil wrapped burger on the little counter by the chairs.

"Hey," he said quietly, glancing over to the burger.

"That one's yours," she explained, handing it over to him and showing him the granola bar she was going to have to consider her lunch that day.

"Thanks," was all he said while he slowly picked at the foil.

She didn't know why, maybe because it meant that she was going to be super bored for the rest of the day if he stayed in this mood, but seeing Andy this sad – if she had to guess he looked like he was depressed if anything – was making her feel all  _empathetic_ and gross. Hopping up to the other chair she sat there for a little while watching him carve out little shapes and figures out of the metallic foil, Andy never looking up or even really seeming to register that April was there.

April wanted to ask him what was wrong and she started to wonder why he wouldn't tell her what was bothering him, but she couldn't bring herself to actually say the words. She'd never dealt with someone in this state and not just made fun of them. While she was getting annoyed at herself for being confused over how to handle the situation, Andy finally took a bite of the burger and chewed furtively. Neither of them seemed to want to talk, so April just sat there taking bites out of the granola bar. After a while he put the burger down, returning to his weirdly introspective looking grimace.

"You okay?" she asked and realized that there was a little more compassion in her voice than she should have liked. "You've been acting all… I dunno, you're being weird today."

In response, Andy looked at her and April tried to focus on his eyes but there was something behind them that struck her by surprise. He was looking at her with a look that  _begged_ her – to do what, April didn't know but she felt compelled to do something. She didn't how to react to this change of atmosphere so April just tried her best to improvise with the situation. All she could think to do was take his hand in hers and lace her fingers through his, giving him a brief squeeze and an inquisitive look.

On any other day, and if it were any other person, April would have laughed at the idea of trying to comfort someone. She wasn't totally emotionless or disconnected from people, but none of them seemed worth giving a shit about to actually do something like that for. April figured she could do this for Andy though part of her didn't even know why it was so easy for her and was a little scared by the immensity and implication of that emotion.

"Sorry, it's just that I-I, y'know today's been kinda weird," he said with a smile that April knew well – the kind of fake plastered on one that people tried out to force themselves to be happy. "My uh, my mom called this morning and I guess my dad kinda died today."

He made a soft noise that straddled the line between a chuckle and a strangled gasp, trying on that same forced smile and looking down at the floor while his thumb pushed against April's hand a little harder than before. April thought she didn't know to handle this situation but now she  _really_ had no idea what to do – both of her parents were totally alive and incredibly annoying. Andy seemed a little broken by telling her this.

"It's really weird 'cause I came to work today and I thought I saw him, like, twice on the street," he told her, eyebrows furrowed and at this point white-knuckling April's hand. "That's dumb because he doesn't even live here, and I wanted to say some stuff but…"

"Andy, I'm sorry," April interrupted, looking at him in an attempt to catch his gaze. "I'm sorry I got mad at you this morning… I-I didn't know."

Reflecting, April realized that she had been more than a little terse with him when he brushed her off so casually. It made April feel a little sick and at the same time confused why she had.

"I just… I thought I'd, like, get to talk to him or something," he seemed to be ignoring April saying anything and continued on. "I mean, I haven't talked to him in forever… like, a couple years? I dunno, and he wasn't even that old, man."

April struggled to figure out what to even say to him at that moment. The only person that April had lost that mattered at all to her was her great-grandmother and that old witch – literally, April had found some of the creepy stuff in her closets and attic – dying hadn't put her in this sort of distress. So, in lieu of saying anything, she just continued to maintain that viselike grip on his hand. Andy laughed again, this time blinking rapidly and looking away from her and that again sent that strange sensation through April that she was a little disappointed.

"Hey, let's go somewhere else," she suggested, standing up and lightly pulling his hand. "We can talk outside or something."

Andy gave her a faint trace of a smile and followed her through the building to the little gravelly courtyard outside the Parks offices. At least there April could avoid the looks of the people walking through City Hall and only had to worry about a few others getting all voyeuristic on them from the Parks employees. Sitting down on the little grey bench abutting the wall of the building, April pushed herself right next to Andy and brought their intertwined hands up to her lap.

Andy was supposed to be a fun crush to her, the fact that they were going out and drinking and making out all the time was pretty cool she had to admit but April had honestly not expected much of anything to come out of this. Now, sitting next To Andy and letting him sit there, taking deep breaths and working up the nerve to talk, April didn't mind that she felt a little something more than that.

"Hey, you can talk to me dude," April suggested, giving him another supportive squeeze. "I don't hate you, so I promise I won't make fun of you."

"Thanks," Andy mumbled and gave her that same look like a begging puppy.

Instead of continuing like April anticipated, all Andy did was take his hand out from hers and push his arms underneath hers to pull her into a hug. April didn't really have these sorts of interactions with Andy and for some reason the hug felt more intimate than anything else they'd done despite the innocuous nature of the thing. She didn't care that he was alarmingly sweaty when he rested his cheek against her head, or that he seemed to be on the verge of crying. Instead April started to get angry at herself for being originally too ambivalent about Andy's sudden change of mood and then defensive at the idea that she cared about him that much to see that.

As far as she was concerned, sitting in City Hall with Andy pushing her over to lay his head down on her lap and stretch out across the little bench, April was okay with letting her guard down a little. Andy just lay there, tapping his thumb on her knuckles while she tried to figure out if running her hands through his hair would be too weird. Based on the fact that all he did was take a deep breath, she figured that was the right call.

"I'm sorry I'm being all emotional and stuff," Andy mumbled from her lap, his speech coming out a little garbled because his cheek was smashed against her knee, "I know you're not into that stuff."

"I'm not a robot Andy," she explained, laughing and glad that he gave her a light chuckle, "it's just that I kinda hate a lot of people and they try to be emotional  _at_ me but this is important and stuff."

"Thanks," he said again, and April found she liked the feeling she got in response to him saying that so quietly – a little burning, aching sensation that flared up and quickly dissipated.

They returned to a comfortable silence and a few times April considered asking him if he wanted to talk more about it. She figured if he wanted to then he'd speak up, so she kept playing with his hands and hair. It didn't occur to April that she would have to eventually go back to work and, to be honest, she would love to see someone come and try tearing this apart. Even if it didn't make a whole lot of sense why she cared so much, or the concept of Andy being so distressed about something, April wanted to be there to help Andy and that – if nothing else was strange – was  _bizarre_ to April. She could live with a little out of the ordinary though if it meant Andy would go back to being rambunctious, energetic Andy.

It was only a few more minutes of sitting there calmly in that position before he sat up next to her and gave her a real, if a little broken, smile that made April's stomach do that little burning thing again.

 

* * *

 

Andy didn't get over his dad's death for a while and, if he was being honest, he wasn't ever really going to "get over it" like people always seemed to be able to do. On that bench in City Hall though, he couldn't help but think that if he ever had a problem with it or just wanted to talk about his dad April would be there to listen. To him, that would do. To Andy having someone there at all to listen to him was the best thing he could hope for, even if half of the time he would just break down and stop talking. It didn't matter, because he'd look up and see a little streak of light running through some dark hair and maybe April's smile.


	21. Same Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is in part inspired by a prompt from thecaptainandthedoctor on ffnet and the song "Transfigure" by Jesu. A little bit of a, I dunno, appreciation fic or something I guess? I have no idea what to call it, to be fair! Anyways, remember that you can always talk to me wherever and whenever but your best bet is on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> Either way, enjoy!

He doesn't really know what to call that feeling the first time he gets it since he's staring at this short intern – he really didn't know what her job was – in that dress and she asks him a question and all Andy can do is answer truthfully. That feeling he'd learn to love was brand new that night, and when she gives him this big grin and looks away kind of awkwardly Andy gets it again and has to wrestle with it for the rest of the night.

And again he gets it when she kisses him for the first time, a sort of weird bubbling discharge that eventually just feels like a warm hand on his chest, and he tries to really focus on that and remember it. He's not sure what it's supposed to mean or how to interpret it, or even how the hell he's supposed to remember something like that, but Andy still keeps it ingrained in his memory when April gives him that list of nonsense things to do.

In reality he just misses that feeling.

 

* * *

 

There are definitely times that Andy remembers being super important and concurring with that feeling, but those seemed obvious to him. He definitely could recall marrying April and the look she gave him when they showed her Champion, but he tried to really pinpoint the little things. The little things like, for instance, when she did something as simple as smile at him in the morning or pull him over to her in bed at some obscene hour in the morning. Andy never knew what that was like enjoying those dumb little things people did, since with Ann he never really  _thought_ about stuff like that to begin with. He never focused on things like how April would get scrunch her face up and bite her lip when she was concentrating on something.

It was weird, being all knowledgeable about someone else. With April though, like most things, Andy was definitely happy to do things a little differently.

"Andy, did you seriously try and microwave cheese whiz?" April interrupts his thoughts one day, holding up a bowl with blackened and crusted cheese on the rim.

"It sounded good," he shrugs in response.

"Dude, you should have told me," she complains and Andy loses whatever weird worry he had. "You can't just make shitty dip and not tell me!"

He wasn't going to tell her that microwaved industrial cheese tasted like garbage. That would break whatever weird illusion Andy was held under in the light of his wife shoving a bowl in his face and looking more disappointed in the fact that she missed out than the mostly ruined dishware. It was such a dumb little thing but he just wanted to tell her he loved for it, because who else was  _this_ awesome? No one, just April – Andy kept telling himself that over and over again that night.

 

* * *

 

Andy doesn't hate that April's in Washington, for the most part, because it's like a cool adventure for them where they don't really get to see each other that often for a couple of months. A few weekend trips help and that's fine, but he realizes that he definitely doesn't like going home and being by himself all of the time since all he does is think and that gets really old really quickly. He goes home, feeds and walks Champion before he tries to write a song and gets bored faster than ever. It felt weird being all alone in that house, going to work, and not really having that much to look forward to when he got home other than occasionally playing with his band.

That's why when April texts him that she's on a flight home he's sitting at the Pawnee's dinky little airport for hours, ignoring how many times his leg falls asleep and how many of those awful burgers he's bought from the food court. When she left Andy did legitimately think it'd be nice for her to go do something like this, and he definitely  _wasn't_ worried she'd find someone way cooler in Washington with a whole lot more money than him, but that wavered quickly. There was only so much porn he could watch without April before things got really boring. Still, Andy puts up with it because April answers everything he sends her and she makes regular visits out – and he even went with Leslie once which was awesome – but he just missed April and everything that having her around meant.

"Hey," Andy hears someone shouting to him and he recognizes the voice but doesn't have the time to register it before someone's kissing him quickly. "Miss me?"

He doesn't even understand how to answer that question since he's been thinking those two words for so long, even if "so long" was only a few months. Forgetting words, he grabbed her by the waist and picked her up, spinning a few times before he stopped remembering that anymore rotations and he'd get too dizzy to walk for a minute or so.

"Uhh, yeah," Andy finally manages to get out.

It's stupid and really blunt, but then April gives him that sort of special, all-teeth smile and Andy doesn't care. He just gets that same feeling and pretends this isn't the best day he's had in weeks, jabbering mindlessly to April as they made their way to the car. He remembers that day pretty well for a while if only because they broke their record by a few hours – an entire day sitting in bed, half-sleeping and lazily having sex throughout the night.

"Hey," he says at absurd-o'clock in the morning.

When she doesn't answer him Andy shakes her back awake. At first she's a little angry but then she assumes that he wants to continue and rolls on top of him slowly, eyes bleary and barely awake. Andy's game, but he still wants to tell her something. It still takes him a second to get his bearings and remember that he wanted to say anything at all, however. No matter how tired they were April still had that effect on him.

"I love you, y'know," he yawns, somehow tired and half-hard at the same time.

"Yeah, I know," and she yawns too, before sliding back off of him and onto her side of the bed. "Love ya too."

Andy doesn't know why, but that's the best thing he's heard in weeks. Not the "love you too" part because Andy knows that, but a half-awake April mumbling it after something that he guessed would constitute sex was another one of those dumb little things that he tries to remember and keep locked in his head. It was just another one of those moments that left him feeling that same old feeling, the one that still has him reeling to this day.


	22. A Day in the Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what I call the 'ole consolidation. I took two prompts (one from thecaptainandthedoctor from ffnet, the other an anonymous tumblr-ite) and pushed them together until I came up with something I liked. Hopefully it turned out okay and neither of you get mad at me for mangling your original ideas too much!
> 
> I'm friendly I swear, so you can always talk to me - though your best bet is probably [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask).

Andy sat back in the little plastic chair and tried not to think about how much of a pain in the ass it would be to stand up, instead focusing on watching his wife play with their daughter and the Knope triplets. As the years went on, even as the age gap became more and more apparent, the four of them were inseparable in a way that confused Andy. The triplets were moving on to high school and still came over a few times a month to hang out with Uncle Andy and Aunt April, playing games with the younger girl. To be fair, April was glad that the only kids that came over were the triplets and rarely others their daughter's age. Andy didn't mind when she told him that, but then they were called in by a school counselor and asked a bunch of weird questions that made him incredibly angry at the guy. So he was just happy she had some friends, even if they were going to going to college when Roberta barely made it into high school.

"Andy, go get the… the thing," April shouted to him while trying her best to weave between four kids in their small yard and say something at all cogent.

"Yep, the thing – totally got it," he returned, shaking his head and walking back inside to try and figure out what in the hell she meant.

In retrospect there wasn't much she could have been referring to, since all it seemed Leslie's kids were into was sports. Somehow, between Ben and her, their interests as a whole fell entirely on everything from soccer to baseball with scarcely a concern for politics or comic books. Andy wasn't going to hesitate to teach their son how to properly throw a curveball since it didn't seem like his daughter was going to be into anything other than playing around in the dirt. That was definitely cool by them, but Andy would be lying if he wasn't a little disappointed.

Then, when she turned six, it seemed like little Roberta was way too influenced by all her time with the Knopes to be into anything other than playing soccer with the triplets. It was an obsession for the little girl and before they knew it April and Andy found themselves more invested in peewee soccer than most things in their life. By the time she was nine and the triplets were getting close to fourteen, April and Andy had supported her in signing up for all the grade school teams she wanted but Roberta only wanted to play soccer.

Digging through a pile of things in the spare room, Andy remembered the first day that April had told him she was pregnant. It was probably the greatest thing Andy had ever heard someone say in his entire life, but April kept telling him how scared she was. That was more surprising than anything since he always assumed she just didn't like kids, but after a while he discovered that she was worried she couldn't handle a kid.

Pulling out the half-mangled net and posts, Andy walked back to the sliding door leading to their backyard and watched carefully as his wife tackled one of the taller girls and was soon dogpiled by the other three. Interspersed throughout the blonde mess, Andy caught a few glimpses of Roberta and her mom wrestling underneath everything that was going on above them. He didn't know what to call that feeling other than blessed when he looked at April and wondered what his life would be like without her but whatever he assumed that feeling of being blessed was like was nothing in comparison to watching his daughter grow up. Five-thousand candles didn't even cut it when he watched the two of them play around like that.

"Now you can play some real 2v2," Andy announced, shaking the posts in his hand as he made his entrance into the yard.

He went to work setting the goals up while April managed to gather the kids inside for a break. Andy found out that he liked working with his hands because it gave him time to think without worrying about his brain getting too focused on all of that stuff, and when Ron invited him to come learn a few things when he built a crib for them he ended up working on a few of the rails himself. Even dumb little things like putting together the plastic goals felt relaxing to him. It was strange, almost like a weird domesticity he never thought he'd have with April.

Even when it was just the two of them and they had some semblance of a pattern – a daily schedule just for  _them_ – Andy never thought April would be the kind of mom who went to a kindergartener's soccer game. Neither did she, and at first she seemed confused at her own investment, but Andy finally understood what April meant when she had said that Andy never looked sexier than when he entertained kids.

"Babe, there's a pizza coming in twenty," April told him when she came back into the yard, "so make sure you grab that, okay?"

"Got it," Andy stood up slowly, one hand on his leg and trying his best to ignore the pain. "Yep, got it. Just gotta get a pizza."

"Dude, you gotta get that checked out," she said, watching him squint in pain. "The doctor said it was arthritis or something, right?"

"Only old people get arthritis," he explained, rolling his wrist and wincing at the dull throbbing at the base of his palm.

"Yeah, and you're old," she laughed and when he shook his head she continued in a lower voice. "You're my old man, though. My sexy-"

"Mom," Roberta interrupted, cradling a soccer ball in one arm and waving her over with the others.

Winking at Andy, she turned around to run over to where the kids were setting up their teams. Andy used to play with them, but a year before he started to get weird aching pains in his knees and couldn't run around with them that often. So they just took turns with alternates and that usually meant April took breaks so they could go inside for a few minutes or at least until they shouted for her and she had to leave him behind.

It was true that Andy was getting weirdly old but he didn't feel like it other than when he lifted something that looked light only to find his knees fighting with him the whole way. Even so, watching April fail to block a shot from the short triplet made him consider what it would be like to have another kid. They had never talked about it and Andy was pretty sure that if he brought it up he would only be inciting an argument or, at the very least, a whole lot of numbers from Ben again. He couldn't help it though and he hoped that April would eventually be swayed by the idea. Between them she was the realist and even she had to admit that having a kid, despite all of the horribly late nights and all of the money and time they lost in the process, it was really a totally different feeling and satisfaction at seeing their daughter grow up.

"Not gonna sub in dad?" Roberta asked him when April started walking back to the little stone patio Andy busied himself with every weekend.

"Nah sweetie, I think my game days are over," he smiled and she turned around, waving to one of the girls sitting out for April.

While his wife sat down in one of the half-busted plastic chairs, he pulled out another beer and handed it to her. Normally she would have accepted it gladly, downing one or two while they relaxed and watched the kids play until sundown or whenever it was that Leslie was supposed to get back from that meeting. Instead she shook her head and he put it back with a surprised look on his face.

"I don't think I should," she whispered to him, and then she made a face – that face – and Andy knew exactly what was coming next. "Hey, you know-"

"Are you?" he spoke up quickly, not letting her finish.

April was caught out, giving him a sly smile and that same look, but before she could reply to him the doorbell rang and Andy pushed himself to his feet. There was so much adrenaline rushing through him he couldn't feel the click-clack and ringing, angry jolts of pain when he walked to the front door. All he could remember was giving the delivery guy too big of a tip and running back to the kitchen. When the kids came rushing in for pizza Andy couldn't keep the massive grin off of his face and he knew April had given up all hopes of restraining one of her own when she saw his face.


	23. Cut - Restless Nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This sort of a "check-up" on Start of Something Beautiful (formerly known as Cut, thus the name), looking forward a few years. 
> 
> This was originally part of this fic, under the title Cut, but is now moved out to another fic (Start of Something Beautiful) that you can find on my profile! Sorry for any confusion.
> 
> I'm not sure how I want to do these continuities, and whether or not they go in chronological order after this one is totally in the air, but I had a jolt of an idea with this one. Anyways, remember that you can always talk to me - and let me be honest when I say it's the best thing ever when I get any messages - but I really would love to see more prompts/requests from you guys! This is as much about you as it as about me writing, so don't hesitate to send anything in to my [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Enjoy!

_4:13 AM_

His phone reads, and Andy can feel the woman beside him rolling around in her sleep. Each night he spent by her he could feel her become restless at night, sometimes staying up when he had already drifted off, and most of the time he would wake up by himself and find her watching TV by herself and slowly eating cereal at six in the morning. He knew that April had nightmares, and he'd been there for a few of them by now, but she rarely ever moved so much. By the way her hands balled up into fists and the way she looked – distressed, fighting – Andy stopped listening to the side of him that was told not to wake her up during those dreams.

"Hey babe," he grabbed her shoulder to stabilize her, "hey babe, wake up."

Andy shook her a little and after a few seconds of coercion April blinked her eyes open, chest heaving with labored breaths. Andy hated seeing her like that, hated feeling powerless against it, but the only thing he could do – like he'd done for years at this point – was be around and try his best. Thankfully, when April had calmed her breathing and focused on the room, she laid back down and fell back into a relatively restful sleep. Andy didn't get much sleep himself that night, but that was okay since April had classes tomorrow anyways and he could just pass out during the day.

He doesn't hesitate to pull her right next to him when she falls back asleep though.

 

* * *

 

_3:39 AM_

This time Andy woke up and found her sitting in the corner of the miniscule apartment, curled up around herself with her knees brought to her chest and arms wrapped around them, giving the ground a quiet, stoic stare. Rubbing his eyes and standing up, Andy walked over to her and sat down next to her with his back against the cold windowsill facing out to the Indianapolis streets.

Sometimes she walked around, other times she would sit down and think to herself. Andy hated that he never caught all of those moments simply because she was too quiet to wake him up and he always asked her why she wouldn't just come to him. He partially believed that she didn't trust him with whatever was in her head, despite everything they'd been through by that point, and he was also afraid of the nature of her thoughts and what they were telling her about him – the lies that he knew April could conjure up in her mind and convince herself were truths.

"Morning," he mumbled still half-asleep and slipping his hand into April's.

They'd been together for two years and counting and April had been hesitant to ask Andy to go with her when she decided to go to college, but it was the easiest decision he'd made in his life. Mouserat had been on a steady decline and he was getting bored of being in Pawnee anyways, so he willingly moved with her into the shoebox apartment she found the first week of ad hunting. Andy had learned how to read April's swings pretty well by this point and knew that the only role he could provide for her was to be constant and there for her, which was probably the easiest job he ever had.

In response to Andy's words, April turned to look at him and had the same self-defeating, weak glare in her eyes that he knew too well. He hated seeing her in that state, feeling like she was alone and searching for something. She stopped for a moment, her bottom lip trembling a bit, and then she moved Andy's arm over her shoulder and buried herself in his chest. They sat like that for a while, warming each other in the cold Indiana morning. Andy learned quickly that April didn't like to talk when that happened to her and she woke up paralyzed with fear and doubt.

It wasn't any easier for her, and Andy knew that, but if he could at least try then it didn't matter.

"Love you," she whispered to him in the dark corner, mumbling against his shirt as she nuzzled him gently.

"Love ya too," he answered, rubbing her arm gently and standing up.

Andy usually managed to guide her back to bed for the night, and that night she went back to sleep clutching Andy's hand in a death grip. He knew he'd wake up with a few extra cuts on his hands and probably end up with a scar or two from it but he figured those weren't anything in comparison to the scars April had. One hand entwined with hers, and his other arm wrapped protectively around her stomach, Andy hoped against all hope that she'd just fall asleep peacefully.

 

* * *

 

_6:00 AM_

April's alarm fired on all cylinders at the exact second, waking Andy whether he wanted to be up or not. Shifting around, he felt April stand up and make her way to the shared closet. Andy knew that sometimes she still felt self-conscious about what she'd done to herself when she was a teenager, so when she grabbed her clothes quickly and walked into the tiny bathroom he stood up and ignored the aching sensation in his gut and walked to the curtain they had instead of a door.

"C'mon April, I gotta go," he mumbled. "It'll be like five seconds, but babe I seriously gotta go."

If he wanted to be honest, Andy missed when she would lazily dress in front of him in the morning and blush or make fun of him for watching. At first he felt creepy but then she'd smile at him while she slipped her underwear on and Andy felt like she was a little happier – he had that same feeling of watching April go out in the day feeling better about herself, and her body.

"Ew dude, I'm changing," she said back to him through the thin walls and barely closed curtain. "Go away, please."

"You're just getting dressed," he said and pulled open the sliding plastic.

April immediately moved her pile of clothes to cover herself and Andy tried not to look at her arms, like he was insinuating something and accusing her of another relapse, so he just moved forward and did his business. Exiting the bathroom he wondered what  _was_ taking her so long, moving back to listen through the thin plastic for any worrying signs. Instead he just shifting fabric and sliding jeans, slow movements but nothing that should have alarmed Andy. When she exited she was wearing the same shirt from the day before and a slack pair of jeans, hair messy and greasy from rolling around in bed with him the previous night. As a result of her anxieties, Andy learned that April still had issues with her own body that extended into her adult life – yet another part of her that drove him crazy just thinking about it, while she regularly tried to hide herself from him. She was busying herself with her hair, tying it up so that she didn't have to worry about it during classes as much, and Andy tried to figure out anything to tell her.

"Hey, you look great," he told her when she grabbed her laptop case and started for the door. "Like, everyday, but I really like the… the thing you did with your hair."

Andy considered it a victory when she touched the pulled up hair gently, gave him that shy smile of hers, and left him with a quick kiss before leaving.

 

* * *

 

_3:34 PM – Same day_

Andy only gets work at the bar they live above a few nights out of the week, so that day he spent the majority of it sitting around and trying to write a song. He missed music more than anything else from Pawnee, but he couldn't find anybody around him that had any of his same tastes and most of the time he went to practices and auditions being asked to play some crappy indie tunes or if he'd be willing to scream instead of sing.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, plucking at the strings and slowly getting more and more agitated that nothing was coming out, he saw April enter the apartment in a hurry. Her hair was a mess and she was carrying a stack of papers underneath her arm, huffing her way over to the bed and shoving the papers into Andy's lap.

"Dude, look what I found all over the walls downstairs," she pointed to an ad on the first flier – a bunch of bands and then one little opening act at the bottom with a logo he remembered fondly.

"I didn't know Burly was still playing," he chuckled and looked at the dumb Mouserat name emblazoned underneath a bunch of illegible nonsense and a few bands he recognized from auditions. "I thought the band just sort of split up."

"Oh and I called him, and he moved out here a few weeks ago to see what it'd be like and," April was talking quickly, something that rarely happened and only when she was verging on excitement, "and he's totally into you guys getting back together. Like, the band."

"Wait, he wants me back in?" Andy asked, unsure.

April nodded excitedly and he had to look back down to the posters to really come to grips with what was in front of him. When they split, it was mostly because Andy felt that everyone else was putting in the bare minimum when they wrote songs and performed. To him they were his best friends but at the same time they barely ever wrote songs, until they told him that he never let them write songs and abandoned him. Now it sounded like he had a second shot at getting back together with some of the grade school friendships he'd burned in a fit of insane, small town ego.

Andy didn't know what else to do other than stand up, take April's face in his hands, and lean down to give her a kiss. It was quick and sloppy, and Andy knew his lips would be a little sore from pushing his lips against hers so hard, but he couldn't stop himself. Afterwards he picked her up by the waist and spun her around, thankful for her height when she barely grazed her head on the low-ceiling.

"April, you are the best person in the entire universe," he said quickly. "Man, I gotta call him. D'you have his new number because his old one isn't working and, and I think I have Saturday off and maybe we can jam again…"

At some point Andy should have realized that April wasn't listening to him. She was too busy smiling at his first sentence, taking his hands, and pushing down onto the bed. It didn't take long for him to get the hint, pushing himself out of his shorts.


	24. How Does It Feel to Be Free?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the very definition of an early post (it's technically Monday for me, so...), so don't get too excited about this happening often. I had this on the burner for a day or two, I forget, and have been chipping away at it. It is not positive, there is actually nothing happy-go-lucky here at all. I didn't even hold back on the ending like I usually do (though to be honest I very nearly wimped out early on), so yeah. I have to post this or else my anxiety will literally ruin me every time I look at it. Anyways, I hope you can still enjoy the read. Remember to hit me up on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask), etc.
> 
> Title is a lyric from Godflesh's "Defeated"

Empty: that was the only way April could describe the feeling every single morning. Everything feels empty, from the way her feet barely make noise while she moves through the house to the sound of her own voice at work, and April tries every day to remember what it's like to know otherwise. At first she wanted to move out and stay with her parents for a little while, but every day she tries there's another memory that April refuses to detach from. Sometimes she finds solace listening to his music, just to hear his voice again, and other times just seeing anything with that stupid logo makes her cry for the rest of the night. Crawling into bed, she'd hold their pillow close to her and bury it in her chest for hours on end in the hope that she might just wake up from this nightmare.

It never worked, no matter how tightly she squeezes her eyes and hopes – prays – that she'll hear his laugh again when he trips into bed April knows he'll never come back. No matter the force of will she tries to exert on the untouched spaces in their bed she knows it will always remain the same – empty.

 

* * *

 

On the morning that Andy was supposed to return from London, April rushed to work in an attempt to burn through the hours of the day fast enough to get Andy back home quickly. At the office, she couldn't stop thinking about seeing his big, dumb face again and all the things they'd missed out on for weeks. Scribbling down nonsense notes and barely paying attention to the phone, April waited impatiently for her lunch break when he should have called her. Instead the break went by without so much as a ring from her phone. Heading back inside, she found everyone – and April was disturbed when everyone included Jerry and Ann – standing in a sort of awkward line in and around Leslie's office. Leslie was sitting down with her hand over her mouth and when she registered that April was staring at their strange procession, she blinked a few times and motioned for April.

Inside, Ann was doing the same hands-over-mouth thing Leslie was and for some reason that annoyed her where Leslie doing it was concerning. The others were in the little central room, a few of them sitting down with Ben and Ron standing up while leaning against a wall for support. Between all of them, there was a heavy air inside the building. April pushed herself through the small crowd and leaned against Leslie's cabinets lining the wall facing her computer screen, trying to follow the older woman's eyes to the screen. It was a live feed of a joint news report from Pawnee and Eagleton, with the oblivious face of Perd Hapley widely on display and his voice coming out of Leslie's speakers. It looked like this recording was now looping based on the sudden appearance of a little slider at the bottom of the screen.

"…in what some are calling an  _event_ , today a plane crash from London to Eagleton was recorded in Central Maine. We know that there were fourteen Eagletonians and one Pawneean on this plane…"

April remembers blinking rapidly and every single muscle in her arms going tense in that exact moment, right before Perd says another word.

"Those are, in fact, numbers. We also know  _another_ number – at this time there have been no survivors found-"

When she was a teenager she had been punched in the gut once so hard that all the air left her and if she had any sort of comparison to what it was like to hear those words it would be a vicious punch to her chest. That wasn't quite it though, because she distinctly recalled a collapsing sensation in her stomach and was thankful for the support of the lining behind her. Ann was looking at her, searching her face for a response, and Leslie had turned around to April and clearly had been fighting off the better part of a breakdown. April struggled to maintain her balance, her hands gripping metal for dear life in the hopes that her nails would keep her standing, and she felt like her face was about to light on fire from all of the heat. Outside Leslie's office, Donna and Tom were sharing sympathetic looks and Ben stood up to say something to Ron. Ann had stood up and moved a chair over to Leslie's desk, moving April into it. She barely recognized moving at all, but when she blinked again she was face level with Leslie and trying to shake herself back to reality where this wasn't happening.

"April, I'm sorry," Leslie finally spoke out, and April felt like it was hitting her again. "We just found out… and, and, and I-I saw a live report going on and I…"

April just sunk deeper into the chair, trying to work through the information. The people around her were starting to become incredibly distant figures in the room, the only thing in her mind being that painful, sharp gash working its way through her stomach. Her eyes were blank, scanning the computer screen for an April Fool's Joke and finding nothing telling her it was all just some insanely twisted joke being played on her. It took her another few seconds to realize that she was just sitting in Leslie's office with her mouth half open, eyes buried in a screen, before the real, dead weight of the thing fell on her.

"No," she whispered to herself. "He missed the plane, he always misses stuff. He's always late."

April could hear Ann make a noise behind her, a sort of painful squeal, and Leslie shook her head sadly while still trying to keep her eyes focused on April without melting down with her. April started babbling incoherently, saying words she thought but she knew came out as nothing but intertwined, broken nonsense. Her hands were clutching her knees, digging deeper and deeper into her flesh and April felt herself shaking in the chair. Leslie put a hand on her knee and April shoved hers inside Leslie's, savoring the warmth of another person's skin against hers for a moment before she started shaking violently again. It didn't take long for April to feel something warm and wet on her cheek, still trying to deny everything she heard, and Leslie pushed April into her chest and wrapped her into a hug.

"He missed his flight, right?" April could feel the whine of tears in her voice, and she could barely stop herself from shaking anymore. "Andy's just… he's just gonna be late, right? Right, Leslie?"

"Shh," was all Leslie had to say to her, and April felt herself break a little.

She felt everything in her body stop for an instant, and everything start back up like a labored line of workers with no motivation. No spirit, no ambition, her muscles and organs found their way back to work with a disgruntled sigh and her body shook itself back to motion. By now April was smashed against Leslie with her head in the older woman's shoulder, trying not to let herself cry the jacket into wet pile of fabric. A few times she felt herself make a noise she would have smacked herself for even mistakenly creating, but April couldn't control what was happening. Andy was just taken from her and things began to creep up in her head – things like everything she thought she'd said that went unspoken, or the way Andy would tell her he loved her, and the way his laugh made her feel warm and at home – all of them piling up and erupting in a mess of tears. April's throat felt like it was on fire from the hoarse noises she had started to make, her eyes already unable to focus now blurry and tear-stained.

"April, come on," Leslie stood and pulled April up alongside her, "let's go home, okay? I'll take you back home, and you don't have to do anything all right?"

April's entire body was giving out and before she had even made it out of Leslie's office, Ann and Ron were taking her from Leslie with one arm slung over each of them. They had to practically drag her down to the car and, when Leslie said she'd take care of it herself, Ron shook his head and pushed himself into the driver's seat. April had barely taken notice of anything at this point but she was thankful for his steeled resolve in that moment. On the ride back to her house, and only  _her_ house she reflected with another shiver, she searched for Leslie's hand in the car and held on.

When they left her on the couch, Leslie refused to leave at first. April kept blinking away any tears, trying to figure out how she could find the emergency escape from this awful nightmare. In the worst of them she had never even considered this – Andy was just  _Andy_ and that wasn't supposed to stop. He wasn't supposed to  _stop_ anything and now – and April felt vomit rising to her mouth when she thought it – he wasn't  _anything_. He was gone. Her Andy was just  _gone_.

"April," Leslie started quietly when April pulled herself into a ball and stared into the space between where Leslie sat and the television, "do you want to-"

Leslie was barely holding on and, although she would never know this sudden deafening silence within April, she sat next to April and put her head in her hands. Together they sat like that for a while, the weight of everything bearing down on Leslie while April kept struggling for thoughts or really anything at all to ground her. She came up short however, holding her hands in their clasped place on her shins – hoping that she could crush life back into her lungs and find something other than Andy in her mind.

The sun started to go down, and the room took on a dark, roughly hewn yellow shade for another few minutes while April stared at the same spot on the wall she had been. Leslie stood finally, her face red and cried out.

"I have to get back to… I have to go, April," she said softly and leaned down to give April a soft kiss on the forehead.

Barely any of that made it into April's mind, where she was too busy focusing on the subtle differences in color from the setting sun and the perfect little lines the lights made on the carpet when they were cut by the blinds. Each one of those stray beams slowly shrunk, every crumbling tower coming to a halt at its base before disappearing entirely, and April felt more tears fall from her eyes in that position. Some of them could have dropped onto the floor but she wasn't really sure of anything that was happening around her at that point. The only thing that made any sense was the light – there and then gone. A few times she caught herself tracing their receding pattern with her fingers, pretending she could feel the heat fading away from her until everything was cold and black, but then she imagined that that heat was the warmth of Andy's hand, gliding comfortably onto hers. His grip loosened with the fading sun, and on the couch April saw and felt her husband's hand fall out of hers.

In the blink of an eye Andy, like those lights, went out suddenly and harshly.

 

* * *

 

April feels her own tears drenching the pillow every night, her hands idly grasping for somebody while she pushes herself into a tighter ball and keeps the warm pillow against her body for as long as she can stand it. She just wants to feel it again, to feel what it's like to have him there with her for another night at least, and she forgets to stop her alarm from ringing out endlessly in the morning. The covers have since long been abandoned, and April looks around the room like she'll find him coming out of the bathroom all disheveled and tired. Just like every day there's no one in the bathroom and there's nobody in the house besides her and Champion.

She takes Leslie's advice and doesn't go back to work again that week. The last few times she tries to go in April can barely keep it together, and it surprises everyone in the office that April's this broken. She doesn't understand why she can't just stopper the flood of memories when she sits down at the place she basically fell in love with Andy. But then she remembers the first time they hung out together in the Parks offices, the spots they'd sit and eat lunch together, and all of the times that April just couldn't stop looking at him and smiling like he was the greatest thing in the world. When she started crying by the copier Leslie had her taken home, and since then she hasn't gone to work.

In all of the time she spent with Andy, she never thought that this would be anything that was at all worth thinking about. If they split that would be its own thing, but this wasn't anything April had prepared herself for. They were happy, still completely in love, and now April was the only one of the pair even on the Earth at all – the thought sending her back to the pillow to bury her face in it and take in the smell like it was the only thing she lived for anymore.

 

* * *

 

Nights were starting to envelop days, and soon time had lost a lot of its meaning to April. She didn't even understand how she could still feel like this when she woke up – something as simple as seeing his clothes she wore to sleep strewn on the floor sent her spiraling out of control. Everyone knew cold, aloof April but now she was the broken, scared April that just wanted someone there. Eventually she decides that she should go into work, or at least try to, and get something done in her life that wasn't wallowing in her house. Unfortunately, she didn't realize how hard it would be to go to work by herself and something as simple and stupid as carpooling brought her back to crippling memories of the way they'd sit around together at City Hall doing nothing.

By the time she had made it there, the drive only being a few minutes long, April already felt her eyes watering and her legs get a little weaker. It was  _stupid_ how easily she had fallen apart, but every time she even so much as thought that her brain piled hundreds of memories and images in front of her as a sort of reminder of what she was missing. At her desk, people avoided her while April jotted down poorly scribbled notes and actually answered phone calls without immediately hanging up. Eventually someone called and April hung up the instant the phone left the base to go for a quick lunch break.

"Hey April," Ben walks by and April tries to ignore him in her quest to find somewhere quiet to be alone in but he turns around starts walking with her, "I didn't realize you were coming back to work."

"Go see Leslie," is all April can get out to him.

"Well, I was going to but I just got a text from her and she's gonna be out for lunch today," he says and April's stomach does a twist because she doesn't want to talk to anyone right now. "Why don't we just go out for lunch?"

His voice is soft and April knows he's trying to be helpful, but every inch of her feels like dead weight and April wants nothing more than to get away from him. Looking around her she spots a bathroom and quickly makes her way inside, hoping that he'll lose interest and wander off if she waits long enough. Inside, she stands staring at one of the mirrors. Her eyes look empty and stare distantly at the mirror as if trying to find something beyond it, and she could still see the bags under her eyes from the last few weeks' sleep deprivations. Running the faucet, she splashes some water in her face and tries to relax – to calm down and not let another fit of shakes and violent tears overwhelm her again. She could do this.

"What are you doing?" and it's Ben, opening the door to women's room and looking at her like  _she_ was the one doing something wrong. "C'mon, I can't be out forever."

"Dude, get out," April scoffs and pretends like she was doing something with the mirror other than washing away nerves.

"April," and there it is again, that voice that Ben tries every once and a while like April's some sort of sick animal that just needs to babytalked to health.

"Ben," she mimics him and suddenly she regrets her tone, biting her lip and shaking her head. "Sorry, I-I guess it's an instinct."

"That's okay," he says and now he's standing next to her and his arm is on her shoulder and all April can think is that it would so much better if it were Andy's hand. "I haven't actually seen you eat anything in days anyways, so let's go out and get something."

But April can't feel herself breath anymore, the feeling of Ben's hand on her shoulder sending another crashing torrent of memories onto her. She could feel him standing behind her, hugging her around the chest and pulling her body closer into his before she turned around and leaned in on her toes to give him a brief kiss, and April's head starts to spin as a result of the sensation. Ben realizes what's happening and keeps a tighter grip on her, but all she wants to do is find the nearest liquor store and drown in whatever was on sale. April moves around in a semicircle, looking up and hoping that she'll see Andy standing there just waiting for her to do something but when it's just a wall April loses control of her legs and falls back a little. She should have felt lucky that Ben was there, but at the same time April wonders what it would have been like to have her head smash against the hard stone flooring, and when he catches her she wishes that he would have let her momentum take her away from all of this.

After a minute of taking deep breaths, April found her balance again and stood up, turning around to meet Ben's eyes. She couldn't take the feeling of unshed tears in her eyes anymore and soon she found herself doing the same to Ben's jacket that she had to Leslie's months ago. April knows that she's starting to become delusional, but every time she has one of these minor breakdowns she hopes that she'll wake up from everything and find Andy sitting there waiting for her. Instead, all she has is Ben's shoulder to bawl into.

"I miss him so much," she mumbled into Ben's shoulder, not caring how close of a moment this was for the two of them. "I wanna see him again."

"We all miss him, April," Ben says and she can feel him sighing and stabilizing himself. "And we all miss you too."

April goes home early, after lunch, and Ben drives her back. Ever since that day she gets these shivers, those shaky and hoarse cries, and she can't get anything accomplished no matter how hard she tries. Walking into the house, she scratches Champion idly and tries again to forget everything. April attempts to find a little blankness in alcohol but all that ends up doing for her is making her hold Champion close to her and cry, remembering Andy's face when he found the dog in the corner of the shelter and his stupid grin the whole way home. She can't help it that she's gotten so used to just opening up in the middle of public places, but away from everything she felt like crying was even more pathetic – April knew she should have been able to move on by now. She  _should_ have stopped all of this, this awful pattern that now was ending with her blasting  _The Awesome Album_ over and over again, but she couldn't and the forty certainly wasn't helping things along.

Even though they never really thought about it when he was around, April starts regretting that they barely have any pictures of them together that aren't badly taken phone snaps. Despite that, she finds herself singing along to a song she's heard countless times now and flicking through dozens of pictures of them. Drowning in memories and cheap booze is the only thing April knows, focusing on Andy's voice in the songs and passing out with a bottle in her hand before the album has time to finish looping again.

 

* * *

 

_I wanna see him again_

Those words echo through April's mind for a long time, and it's a while before she eventually puts down the over-the-counter cocktail she's thrown together. She won't lie to herself and pretend that it wouldn't be easy to just finish it off and fall asleep without getting back up, but April can't even bring herself to do that simple action without thinking about how disappointed Andy would be in her. She just sees his face frowning when she holds the handful of tablets in her hand and can't put them anywhere other than on the table.

That night, after she crawls into bed and finally manages to fall asleep, April has a dream where she sits on a bench on a street she doesn't recognize and sees him. He's walking down the street with his hands in his pockets, eyes squinting against the brightness of the sun, and then he walks up to her and takes one of his hands out of a pocket and presents it to her. She takes his hand and they start walking down the street for a while, and she realizes that neither of them are saying a word at all. It seems okay though, and they continue walking down the street for a while before Andy lets go of her hand and walks away. She tries to follow him but she can't remember the way he goes so she spends the rest of the dream sitting in the middle of the street in the hopes that she'll figure out how to follow him.

April has this dream for a week and each time Andy walks up to her, smile on his face the size of a country mile, she nearly falls apart. It's almost enough to make her reconsider finding that pile of pills again. One night her dream takes a twist when he actually says something to her. The sound of voice is amazing, seeing his mouth move and his eyes full of life makes her stomach do a twist and April realizes how artificial and weak just hearing him sing on record is. This felt like reality to her.

"Hey," and his voice breaks in a way that makes April clutch her stomach like she's just been shot.

"Hi."

At least that's what April tries to say, but she can't get the word out. Her mouth feels like someone stuffed cotton inside and every time she tries to respond all she can do is choke back the syllable. For an instant Andy gives her a surprised look before everything blurs back into a haze. Waking up one night, she sits up in bed and scrambles to find the half-empty bottle sitting beside the mattress. Cracking open the cap once again, April drains it and falls back into bed where she can have a night of hazy, dreamless sleep. At least when she was drunk she could just hope that Andy would turn up in some motel in Pennsylvania trying to make his way home. At least she had that delusion for herself, so that when she speaks to herself at night she pretends that somewhere he's going to hear her.

"I'm sorry I never really told you how much you matter," she slurs to herself and the black room around her, her throat heavy, "Like, you don't even know, man. It's been the fu-fuckin' worst here. I miss everything… just, I just wanna see you again so much Andy."

The only response she gets is the heavy breathing of Champion by her feet and a low howl of a midnight wind outside. Some insane notion in the back of April's mind is screaming at her that he'll be there to answer, and then when he doesn't she can barely feel the shaking begin. Inside her room all she has is the empty bottle and the dog to keep her company, staring up at the ceiling and hoping that everything could just go back to what it was. April just wanted to see him again, and to run from the swirling madness inside of her that led to her marathon crying sessions and spending more and more money on liquor every week. Rolling her hands up in the pile of blankets, April manages to slide herself in between their spots and take up as much of the bed as possible before falling back to sleep.

As soon as she closes her eyes, the image comes back to her, the street, and Andy. The skies are a little darker and the houses look less like homes on the corridor road, shattered windows and beaten doors lining the street like badly-wrapped candies. Andy doesn't walk over to her with a comforting intent this time, either. When he reaches her, April smiles but the only thing she sees in Andy's eyes is a sad disappointment.

"You never believed in me," he says angrily with a strange glint in his eyes that April doesn't even recognize. "I was always barely anything to you, so you should be happy."

April tries, wants – desperately  _needs_ – to tell him he's wrong. The insanity he's speaking makes April's chest heave in rapid succession, breaths barely coming out one after another in a wild attempt at keeping her alive, and all she wants to do is to stop him. But she can't – her own silence louder than the empty words Andy was yelling.

"Face it, you never loved me. I was just a big joke to you, a big dumb joke you never really wanted around."

"That's-" and April's throat strangles the rest of the words out from her.

"You're free now April! It's gonna be awesome, you'll see – you can forget about me, go find other people, go actually fall in love," he swings his hands in a wide circle around him and April's whole body is on fire. "Look at it like getting your life back!"

The scene dissolves in her mind, Andy's face in the center of the melting void and all the anger it holds. It was all nonsense, but then April wonders if that's what Andy actually thought – if that's what he died thinking. Andy had a weirdly sensitive side that he revealed only occasionally, usually burying some emotion, but this was one side of him she never expected. It brings her out of sleep for a moment and she wakes up the next morning with a throbbing headache and a sore throat. Her hands search the bed for something to hold onto, but they come up short. She spends another shower trying to wash the tears out of her, but the only thing the water gets done is letting April cry in some imagined privacy. At least in there she pretends that it's just water rolling down her face and the pain feels less real in a brief respite – a safety of running water and horrified thoughts.

When she steps out of the shower and finds the will to put clothes on, April still has what Andy said running through her mind. One arm through a sleeve –  _you hated me_ – and another chill. She slips into the same pajama pants and there he is, screaming  _getting your life back_ over and over again. April can hear the heartbreak in his voice and wants to touch him, to hold him and let him know that's all a lie. She just wants to see him again, to tell him everything and let him know how much he really mattered. It doesn't take much of this before she's sitting down in the living room, holding onto that stupid jersey, and April stares off – away – into the wall ahead of her as if time will bore through the siding, the flesh of the structure, and she'll find him hiding within. She'll find Andy and get to tell him that he was; no, she has to correct herself, Andy  _is_  loved.

 

* * *

 

Another morning, another shot. April can barely keep the stuff down anymore, but she drinks anyways. Half of the time she's in such a stupor she can't even stand up, let alone go to work. The others try to say she's spiraling, that she's too dependent – but they don't know. None of them know what it's like to sit there, one day ready to restart your life, and feel everything disappear. Every single day of her life she tries to stop, to go forward, but all she can hear – everything she knows – is that one dream. April doesn't understand how he can think that, and it consumes her.

_You never loved me_

And April can't stop  _hearing_ him. In everything, in everyone, she hears him say those words over and over. In the walls his voice is like mice scurrying against joints, carrying those painful four words throughout the house like the plague they've become to her. In every inch of the house, all the squalor and stench, she wishes to be back – to be alive, and free again. April hears miniscule noises that she mistakes for his footsteps, aching to see him there in bed with her until she pushes down and hears the springs squeak again. She just wants to know what it's like to be free again, to be free-

_You never loved me_

To live in the silence, where those words lay absent and away and where she can find him again. April wants to live, to be free, but she can't bear the pain of those words. They begin to melt together into a chaos of sound, with each syllable reverberating off of the walls and return to itself to intermingle as a fuzzy, drowning torrent of noise. She grabs another bottle, barely has time to open, and is already halfway through when she hears it again – feels it rising in the back of her skull like a persistent knock.

_youneverlovedme youneverlovedme_

It's everywhere – in her blood, her bones, her home, the world. Those words penetrate everything April has ever known and she just wants them to stop, to see them for the lies they truly are, but she doesn't know how. She doesn't know what to do without him, and with those words surrounding everything she can't handle it. Trapped in her own home, a prison of insomnia and alcohol, she waits for the words-

_youneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedme_

-to stop, for her mind to be clear again. Everything will be okay, she tries to tell herself, and he knew – he knew, yeah definitely; he knew what she felt. He knew that he was-

_youneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedme_

-loved; he has to have known. She can't sleep without telling him, but then she can't sleep at all with the racket in the floor and the walls. In her body, she feels every word run across her skin like a venomous parasite burying itself deep in her. They won't  _stop_ and she just wants them to leave – leave, go away, she wants them gone; she wants them gone – but then she has to remember his voice, and then…

_youneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedme_

Then she has to hear the words again, spinning circles in her like an animal circling its prey. She can't escape – she wants to, she wants  _to be free_ but then she can't. She can't. She can't.

She can't.

_youneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedmeyouneverlovedme_


	25. Cut - Moving Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, let's fluff it up today. When I was writing the last "check-up" (I have no clue what to call these extensions) I snuck in a line about April's anxiety asking Andy to go with her. This is that scene expanded. I hope you enjoy it and whether you do, or even if you hate it, I love feedback and would be the happiest person in the universe for a brief moment if you left something here or on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Enjoy!

Nearing the end of the summer break, staring at a bunch of papers with a load of fancy terms like  
"acceptance" and checking online – refreshing thousands of times in the span of a few minutes – April started feeling a familiar panic rising in her chest. Sitting back in the chair, she put her hands against the edge of the table and took a few deeps trying to remember that she was nearing the finish line. She was almost there, right on the cusp of clicking a little grey box and accepting her entrance to Martin. She could have gone to more prestigious schools, but between the bills her parents had racked up sending her to a failed psychotherapist and regular living it was the best she could afford.

The problem was she hadn't told Andy at all about what she was doing.

Several times she had the urge to tell him, mostly because he was starting to get really down on himself after what had happened between him and his bandmates with the Mousrat dissolution, but she couldn't find herself doing it. In some way she was worried that he would be mad at her for abandoning him, and although she loved him April wasn't ever going to just let go of her some of the more grasping anxieties. Considering all the time they spent together it was a wonder he still bothered hanging around, but she wasn't going to stop it when every time she kissed him he still had that dumb, profound look on his face like he'd just discovered the cure for cancer.

"Hon, Andy's here," her mother called from the living room.

"Cool," she yelled back, tapping the track pad on her laptop idly and clicking away the little dropdown that kept appearing and reappearing because of it.

April had invited him over with the intention of letting him know that she planned to leave for Indianapolis. Between all of the days messing around in town and the nights they spent together April had gotten more and more comfortable with Andy around, to the point that she rarely had to speak with him if something was bothering her. He had started to  _sense_ things when they were off, and not having to voice the words was a godsend to her – the fact that sometimes he'd wake up sympathetically when she couldn't sleep, and sit with her in the dark just holding her was more than she could have hoped for.

"What up, squeeze?" Andy entered with, looking at the mess on the kitchen table and leaving a quick kiss on her cheek before sitting down next to her.

He was still dressed in the same dirty sweats from the night before, a jacket slung over his shoulders and barely covering up his odor, and the effects of the breakup were still heavy on his face. April hated his music, at least the actual listening to it part, so all she could do was listen to him sing bad power ballads to himself over and over again in the morning.

"Not much, just… doing something," she answered, glancing up to her mother who was making her way into the kitchen.

"Andy, please don't wear your shoes in here," Mrs. Ludgate said pleadingly, pointing at his feet. "I can barely keep Zuzu out of the mud, you know that."

"Yeah, sorry about that," he said while pulling one of his sneakers off and giving April's mother an apologetic look. "So what's the something you're doing, babe?"

April's mother laughed at the expression tacked on to the end of that sentence and April just tried to hold back a grimace. The older woman walked out of the room shaking her head, taking Andy's shoes from him to put by the front door. It wasn't that she didn't like it when he called her by dumb nicknames – they were all certainly better than "Zuzu" – but they were starting to remind her that she was keeping her plans a secret from Andy. For what reason she had even initially kept him she couldn't really remember, but she knew she had to at least tell him.

"I, um, hey I don't want you to get mad at me or anything," April started, rubbing her index fingers against her thumbs just to have something to do with her hands.

"Uhh… okay?" he gave her a confused look and brought his arms up to the table to lean his hand on them. "Shoot."

"So I applied to this dumb little school in Indianapolis and I got in," she glanced sideways trying to avoid him and focus on the little text boxes on the laptop. "I don't even know what I want to do yet, but I didn't tell you and I'm sorry and-"

"Dude, that's awesome," he interrupted with an excited shout, standing up to walk over and give her a big hug.

After he was done and he had sat back down all April could day was stare at him, confused.

"Andy, you realize I'm gonna be moving right?" she asked, still wary of his enthusiasm.

"Oh yeah," he said with a sudden realization dawning on his face, scratching his beard before he continued like he hadn't missed a beat. "It's not that far is it? Ben only has to drive like a few hours or something to come hang out here. I could, like, do that too."

"Why aren't you mad? You're supposed to be mad at me right now," April exclaimed, stopping her hands' previous movements and looking at Andy squarely in the eyes to try and find something there.

"Why?" he asked, seriously confusion in his voice.

"Because I totally did this behind your back and now I'm moving and I kind of don't want to because I'm gonna miss you a lot and I'm sort of scared," she got out in a rush before she had time to think about what she said meant.

Taking a deep breath, she watched Andy's look go from confused to a little surprised before his eyes warmed and the corners of his mouth turned up in a small smile. As if on cue he motioned for her to move closer to him. Cautiously she stepped towards him and pushed herself onto his lap and meeting his hand halfway between them.

"If you think I'm not gonna visit you every single weekend – and probably, like, most days – then you're the dumbest person I've ever known," he said softly, rubbing his thumb over the curve of her knuckles.

"I love you," she mumbled to him, looking down at their hands.

"Love you too," he replied, kissing her temple.

"But, that's not what I was thinking," April said quickly, appending her previous statement before she got too caught up in the moment and didn't bother to ask him. "I was wondering, actually, if you'd… um, come with me?"

"Babe, I'm not going to college," he stated matter-of-factly, chuckling.

"No," she laughed and smacked his arm playfully with her free hand, "I meant I want to find some piece of crap apartment and I want you to go with me. Like, y'know…"

"Like, move in together?" and Andy's face was a mixture of surprise and maybe a little fear.

"Oh, you don't have to babe," she corrected herself hastily and the moment the word babe slipped out of her mouth she wanted to pretend that had never happened. "Ugh no, I mean you don't have to. It's cool. We'll just do the other thing."

There were a few seconds, only a handful of heartbeats, where April thought he was going to fall back on his old plan. She'd miss him for sure, and she'd miss the support, but it was workable. They could definitely work it out, though it was definitely in the back of April's mind that Andy should just go with her.

"That could be cool, right?" he spoke up, interrupting her wandering mind with a thoughtful expression. "I mean, it's gonna be weird probably but it could be awesome too and I'm always down for awesome."

"Really, you're in?" she asked, a little skeptical at his sudden change of heart.

"Hell yes I'm in!" he stood up and brought April with him in her curled up position, one arm under her legs and another supporting her back.

"I seriously love you a lot, Andy," she whispered to him, her eyes flitting around his face instinctively.

Darting in, she left him with a brief kiss that gave him a hint at what she was asking from him. Understanding the subtle nudge, and the burgeoning grin on her face, he leant in and returned her kiss with fervor while April slipped her hand around his neck to grab a small tuft of hair. After a while they broke apart and Andy gave her that look that always made her feel important and wanted.

"Yeah, like I said, I love you too," and it was quiet.

It was quiet with a little undertone of wanting, almost like a beggar, and April craved hearing it. That's why she had been so hesitant about asking him, she guessed, but now – in the weird cradled position she was – that seemed like the stupidest thought in the world.


	26. Slide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very brief fluff missing-moment type thing. My only inspiration for this is that drunk people can be both super enlightening and annoying to talk to. Anyways, remember that you can always talk to _me_ if you've got an idea or some feedback, like, whenever on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask).

April could feel her head spinning, moving in indistinct patterns round and round – sometimes stopping at a full three-sixty and other times pivoting back and forth in semicircles – while she sat there passing the bottle between her and Andy. There wasn't a whole lot they could do together considering how insanely broke the two of them were, so most times they just sat around one of the others' houses and watched TV. That night they had managed to get Burly to leave them the handle of Jack which was, sadly, starting to diminish with each pass.

"Y'know," Andy started, clearly intending to finish something until he took a drink and seemed to forget what he wanted to say.

It seemed hilarious to April for some reason, watching him sway in his spot a little trying to remember what he had wanted to say. Laughing and tipping forward, April lost her balance and nearly fell over before she steadied herself against the armrest of the couch.

"Y'know, you're awesome April," he finally finished slowly.

"Yeah, I know," she replied, stopping to take another swig before continuing. "You're pretty cool too."

"Why didn't… ugh, why didn't we just, like, do this before?" he asked, confused and squinting at her.

"Because…" April had to close her eyes and focus on staying still for a second to finish her sentence, "because of… what's her name? The one, uh, y'know the bitch that's-"

"You're awesome April," he repeated, putting the bottle down on the ground and sitting back in the chair, staring away from her and at the ceiling.

"No, that's not it…" she trailed off, following Andy's eyes to the ceiling and regretting the motion before turning back to him. "Ann, her… that's; that's why."

Andy groaned, either because of the mention of Ann or because his method dealing with his own spins was going very poorly. Either way, April sat there watching him and her head didn't clear up one bit and she still sat there wondering what it would have been like if she had gone to Indianapolis and left him here. While she considered how much fun she had been having the past few weeks, and that awesome feeling she got in her stomach when he looked at her and when they kissed, Andy just widened his eyes as he stared at the ceiling fan.

"Y'know, you're awesome…" he repeated again before his face turned serious and he shifted his gaze to her. "You glad you stayed here?"

That was another thing she learned about him, how he could be weirdly perceptive. Most of the time he was just ever so close to the real problem but, every once and a while, he'd nail it and surprise her. April didn't expect him to be that observant while drunk, causing her to close her eyes and crack her neck so she could try and kick some clarity into her system.

"Why d'you ask that?" she slurred, looking at the half-empty bottle and wondering just how bad tomorrow was going to be.

"Because… you're so awesome, and all we do is stuff like this," and Andy pointed down to the bottle before holding his hands out and talking while focusing on them. "I mean… like, I want to buy you a fuckin' boat or something. Or build you one, and… and we can go be pirates or something."

"What the hell are you talking about?" April could barely follow him by now, confused where the boat came from let alone piracy. "This is awesome."

Every time they hung out he always had a sad, disappointed look on his face. She just assumed that he wasn't as into her as he had initially thought, or something like that because her brief clarity was starting to melt away into a weird, shaky feeling. For a second April thought she was going to pass out on the spot until she heard Andy struggle with words again. He was still staring at his hands, squeezing them together, and his entire body was swaying ever so slightly left to right.

"I dunno…" he started but couldn't figure out the words to finish the sentence because his eyes were going all over the place and focusing on nothing.

"You're weird, dude," she said casually, feeling something like a smile creep onto her face.

"And you," he pointed at her, his eyes suddenly focused on her and words steadier, "you are awesome, April. You are so-"

"I know Andy," she complained, getting annoyed at him repeating those words over and over again.

"I love you, man," he chuckled, sitting back in his chair and kicking his feet up on the table.

April sat there for a moment, his words not quite connecting in her head as a whole thought for a while, and watched him drift into sleep quickly. As soon as she put her head back on the armrest and tried her best to stretch out on the small sofa, the idea coalesced in her head. She didn't have much time to think about it before she passed out.

In the morning she could only remember very vaguely what was bothering her. Leaving after a breakfast of bagel bites and flat soda, it took her until she was back in her house smashed up in her blankets against a pillow to remember exactly what he had said. Even if he was completely gone, and to be fair they were both hammered beyond recognition, he had said he loved her with a big stupid grin on his face. It was kind of awesome, and April really liked the strange feeling she got from it – almost like being picked up and dropped so hard and fast her stomach didn't know how to respond. She had to catch herself grinning in her pillow like a stupid teenager, remembering that he probably just meant it like he'd say to his friends when he was drunk. Even so, she couldn't get that ridiculous, light feeling out of her body and decided that when they went to the Harvest Festival setup she'd try it out herself – see how it felt to return the words without a thousand pounds of alcohol on her brain.

"I love you," she whispered to herself against the pillow and for a split second April wanted to vomit at how childish she was being.

Then she got that feeling again, imagining Andy staring at her like the giant child he was and pushing her up against whatever solid object was nearest. Yeah, she kinda liked that feeling a whole lot.


	27. Insomnia and Lullabies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymously requested baby-fluff, anyone? Well, that's what you're getting! Trying to get this one out early because I have the free time this afternoon and trying to squeeze one of these in on the weekends can be really hard. If you want to make my time writing these every day a little easier, remember that you can always give me feedback or send requests/prompts/whatever you kids call them these days in to my [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Ya'll are the best, each and every one of you that comments, gives kudos, or reads at all. It means a lot to me and helps me keep going on this _insane_ journey.

At first, and even then that only meant a few hours, it was cute: all the crapping she did, all the screaming, and every single time she cried it would only take April picking her up to calm her down. Then, when night fell, everything Roberta did stopped being so  _cute_ and started to converge into a so-called  _hellish nightmare_. April made a pathetic, complaining noise whenever they heard the baby start crying at around four in the morning and Andy was at the point where if he sat down for longer than ten minutes in the middle of the day he'd fall straight to sleep.

"Andy, can you please get her," April whimpered, rolling back to her side of the bed. "I actually want to sleep, y'know, for once."

"Yep," he answered quickly before his primitive brain took over and pushed him into sleep and an argument.

Walking back to the spare room turned nursery, Andy rubbed at his eyes and pretended he wasn't as ridiculously tired as she was. In reality he probably wasn't and Andy knew that, and she had taken many of the nightly duties for the past week, but his eyes were barely keeping open. That is, until he started getting closer to the crying baby. Then he was fully alert because it would be impossible to drift off in that sonic fury.

"Okay, okay, okay," he tried getting louder than her, but all that did was make her stop for a second before returning to belligerent screaming. "All right, that didn't work."

He tried picking her up and doing what he'd seen April do with her – which was mostly just rubbing her back and walking circles, mumbling how much she wanted to go back to bed – but that didn't really pan out either. Feeding her wasn't the solution since all the baby did was stare idly at him and the bottle. He couldn't blame her – a plastic nipple was definitely no match for the real thing – so Andy kept her cradled in his arms while he walked around the nursery trying to figure something out. She hadn't crapped herself awake at least, because the last time that had happened April had screamed for him in the middle of the night. He thought it was someone who had broken in based on the shrill yell, at first, but then all he had to find in the nursery was April waving her hands and pointing at the half-open diaper.

Turns out, Andy's way better at handling poop than April. Probably because he had been watching the labor firsthand, and not under an epidural, and everything sort of goes out the window after you see the excess bag – the contained blood behind the placenta, the dripping  _other_ materials, and everything else that Andy would have been just fine never seeing come out of his wife's body. But, there he was, and so he had developed the natural intestinal fortitude that shoehorned him into changing a lot of the more troublesome diapers.

"Shh, let's go to sleep," he tried whispering to his daughter to no avail. "We can go to sleep, and then wake up, and then you can cry and we can get mommy in here."

Then Roberta, against all evidence claiming it impossible, somehow started crying even  _louder_. Giving a ragged sigh, Andy tried thinking harder about how he was supposed to get her to calm down. Everything he knew was starting to fall apart, all the tricks he'd picked up from April and Leslie.

"Oh duh," he exclaimed, remembering what Leslie said, "you're tired!"

The baby whined in response and Andy knew he was right. The only problem was that he didn't know how to get her  _back_ to sleep. Leslie told them that she might just kick herself awake or suddenly break her own sleeping schedule, forcing them to wake up at obscene hours often, and when April asked how Leslie managed that with three kids she gave Ben a quick smile and the bags under their eyes seemed to become more pronounced.

"You are the loudest little baby, like ever," he started singing to her, trying to figure out what the hell to do with her. "The loudest, the cutest, and the… uh, poopiest."

He landed on a melody with the last line – enunciating the little suffix at the end of every word – and went along with it. Soon he was humming it when he couldn't figure out words because he was trying to find something like a toy or a book he could read to her. If it wasn't a lullaby Andy wished he had his guitar so he could actually figure out a way to make a song out of it – he had to keep reminding himself that it was a lullaby because that vocal melody kicked ass.

"Roberta, your name takes too long to say," he half-sang while laughing and picking up the little weird baby chew toy that he could never remember the name of even though April constantly told him not to call it a chew toy. "How do I make that a line…?"

When he stopped singing and humming, finally having found the pacifier lying next to where she had been asleep prior to her tantrum, Andy noticed something amazing about the room:  _quiet_. Looking down, she was already asleep with two of her fingers stuck in her mouth and quietly – and that was the key word,  _silently_ – snoozing. Putting her down gently and then, after maintaining the support on her head all the way down like April had been so terrified that he wouldn't be able to, Andy took a step back and watched her kick a little from the sudden change in close body heat.

Andy loved his kid: he loved watching her sit there with her strange baby face that always looked either confused or completely oblivious to everything, and giving up most times he'd usually spend writing songs or practicing music for her wasn't that bad, but none of it was bad. Except maybe getting up suddenly at five in the morning to do this and that was only terrible in the moment. Afterwards, watching her sleep gave him a weird proud feeling in his chest. It was like he'd finally done it – like he, Andy Dwyer, had made a freaking baby and with the coolest chick in the universe to top it all off.

Andy really did love his life.

Giving a sigh of relief, he ambled back to bed feeling like sleep would be the most beautiful thing in the world. When he opened the bedroom door April was sitting up, earbuds in and likely listening to one of those stupid relaxation mixes Leslie had sent her. Noticing him enter, she took one out and gave him an inquisitive expression.

"She's out for the count," he grumbled, flopping down next to her and rolling over in the hopes that he'd immediately pass out.

"That was fast," she admitted. "I'm impressed, that's probably your best time babe."

"Yeah, I know," he got out through a stifled yawn.

There was a moment there where Andy almost fell asleep – and it was  _so_ close he could almost feel his mind going completely blank – until he felt April move in the bed. Soon her head was on his shoulder and he had to turn around. She had a giant smile plastered on her face, almost like Andy in a candy store.

"Hi," he said eyes wide and worried that this was one of those nightmares where April turned out to be a serial killer.

"Thanks for getting her, but I couldn't sleep anyways," she raised her eyebrows. "So, I was thinking…"

"Honey, I'm pretty sure I'd just pass out," he yawned again and April scrunched her nose up at his breath. "Sorry, didn't uh, brush last night I guess."

"Last night?" she asked, laughing.

"Well, this week," he admitted. "Okay, I should probably get better at that right?"

"It's a definite maybe," she nodded.

Then she threaded her fingers through his hair and pushed herself even closer to him. Andy might have literally passed out if they tried having sex, and not for a lack of wanting since they hadn't had the time for it and April was as far off from wanting it for the first little while, but he couldn't resist it when she forcefully pushed his head towards hers. Or when her hands came dangerously close to peeling the skin off of his ass, or when she bit his top lip and opened her eyes slightly and it was all kind of a blur to Andy now that he tried thinking about which part was the hottest.

He  _could_ , however, admit that hearing Roberta start crying and April laughing against his chest telling him to go work his magic again wasn't quite as hot.


	28. Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This, without a doubt, is the most intrusive thing I've ever written. It is not biographical, but it does draw a rather large amount from someone very close to me. I was given permission to write this only because she said that I did it justice, at least while maintaining a positive ending, and I can only hope you can enjoy it.
> 
> It's definitely very AU, but even then only barely so. Either way, let me know how I handled this because... well, because. Thanks!
> 
> 10.15.14 - edits and additions; clarification, etc.

She hopes that no one notices the bruises on her arms or the more subtle changes, but April can't help it when the shoeshine guy looks at her the way he does and she smiles back. She remembers and stuffs her hands back into the pockets of the jacket she's wearing, looking away and trying to forget about him.

 _Him_.

That word makes April's stomach twist, like a foreign object that's been stuck in her body for far too long in need of emergency removal, and she has to sit down and focus on work for once to get the word out of her head. All she can relate to that word is hearing her father scream it at the top of his lungs, and the bruises sting again and everything starts hurting in her body like an eternal agonizing yell. Things seem to go okay for the first few hours of the day, but it's starting to become impossible to focus on anything before she has to excuse herself from a meeting.

"Hey April," Andy says to her when she passes him.

"Yeah," she returns, not even sure what he had said in the first place.

She goes home – home might not be the word she would have used – and ignores Leslie's calls for the next few hours. She's willing to take the next few weeks of lectures and berating, but she can't stand being  _there_ anymore. Not now, not with him. She packs things: clothes, a handful of whatever bottles are still sitting in the shower, and manages to stuff her laptop inside of the bag as well as a last thought. He's not there, and she doesn't know where she wants to go but it's not her "home." It's not that  _house_.

She answers Leslie, but with a request. April can feel the shivers all over her body and the achy, whispering voice she can barely produce.

"Hey Leslie," she interrupts when the older woman begins with a tirade about responsibility.

"April?" and Leslie's suddenly calmer, like she hears the weight behind April's shuddering words. "What's wrong?"

"I just need a place to stay for…" she stops, wondering what she should say, "I need somewhere to be for, like, a couple days."

Leslie doesn't answer immediately and in that silence April feels the weight of the bag on her back like it's going to keep her tethered to that place. Home has lost all of its meaning to her there and all April wants is for Leslie to say okay and to be there when everyone else wasn't.

"Okay," Leslie finally sighs, "but I want you to tell me why."

"Please pick me up and we'll talk about it," April asks her and she tries not to think about how whiny and needy she sounds.

It doesn't take long for April to see Leslie drive up to the house, idling and waiting for her to come out. April practically sprints for the car, throwing her things in the backseat and vaulting in through the passenger side door. Leslie doesn't say a word on the ride, though April can sense her looking and trying to bore into her head with just a stare. It doesn't work, it definitely doesn't break April's resolve, and all it does is end up making the drive even more uncomfortable. At least for Leslie since all the younger girl can think is one single word:

_Escape._

At Leslie's ramshackle organizational nightmare house, April tries to postpone it as much as possible. It's only been a few years of this, of daily emotional and physical scarring, and the wounds are still fresh in her body. Every breath in the small living room, even smaller from the stacks of books and magazines, is like freedom to her until Leslie sits down across from her on the sofa and gives her a demanding glare. Instead of saying anything, April just takes her jacket off and shows Leslie the marks – mostly on her arms and shoulders, some on her stomach, others covered by heavy makeup around her neck, but she neglects to show her the ones on her chest.

"Who did this to you?" Leslie asks, holding April's arm gently and moving a hand over one of the yellowing bruises.

April shakes her head and pulls her arm away. Retreating back to her corner of the couch, she takes another drink of the hot chocolate Leslie's made for the night and asks for a blanket. It's another hour before the older woman relents and brings her a blanket.

"I can help, April," she says in the dark before she heads off to go to sleep.

But she doesn't care about getting help – she just wants to be  _away._

In the morning, they say nothing to one another all the way to City Hall. April wears the same clothes and nearly forgets to cover her neck, thankful for someone else there to remind her. No one asks why they carpool that day, and no one really seems to care which is great. Everything seems totally normal until she goes out for lunch.

"Hey," and it's Andy again.

She walks away from him, halfway to running away and hoping he'd just go away, but it's not going to work and she knows it. April just wants him to stop for a moment and leave her alone.

"Hey," he says once again, right behind her but nearly shouting. "Hey, April!"

"What?" she turns around, very nearly causing him to run into her.

"Dunno, you're just kinda… hey, you wanna get one of those new mozzarella meatball pizza things?" he suddenly asks and his voice quiets –  _a lot_ – like he's trying not to be abrasive or loud. "I mean, it's your lunch break so I thought… maybe, we could, like, do that…"

"No," she says quickly and turns around.

"Okay," he comes back with, all tired and sort of defeated.

"I mean," and April has to turn back around so that he knows she's talking to him, "I'm gonna go grab something then I'll be back."

Andy smiles back at her and she wants to, but can't find the will to actually give him a real grin so all April does is nod and go back to her route to the cafeteria. She quickly picks something up, some bizarre sandwich with a bunch of ingredients she would never be able to pick out individually, and makes her way back to the shoeshine stand where Andy's talking to Ann. Standing there, watching him talk to her –  _her_ and it's so real,  _her_  – April feels her hand ball into a fist but doesn't realize she's still holding the wrap in that one until it's nearly split in two. Then he notices April, and Ann walks away, but April can barely resist the urge to scream when she sits down next to Andy and Ann's long gone.

"So, what'd you get?" he asks, and she should have known what going out for lunch meant.

"You can have this part," she gave him one of the halves from before. "I have no idea what this is, there's a bunch of meat on it though."

"Cool," and Andy takes a massive bite out of his.

April barely nibbles at her half, not really sure why she suddenly lost all appetite, and takes to watching Andy's personality change in an instant when food's involved. It was as if the weird care she heard in his voice before was just a show he put on.

"Next time just ask me to buy you lunch," she finds herself saying for no reason at all.

"Sorry," he admits and April feels her chest collapse under a different weight than she's used to.

"It's cool," she replies and it seems like her façade works because Andy gives her another smile.

"So why'd you come in with Leslie today?" he asks and April freezes mid-bite. "I mean, you usually drive here or something but I never see you guys come in together."

"I got up early," she hastily explains but all she gets from him is a confused crane of his neck. "I left work early yesterday and I guess I just got a bunch of extra sleep or something last night."

April hates how simple he is right then. She never wants to ask anyone for help, she hates the very idea of it, but she wants Andy to talk to her and ask her things that matter a little more than pizza burgers. Then she remembers that there's always going to be Ann, who despite her age  _is_ Ann, and April has to put her food down again before she either vomits or bursts into tears. It's been happening way too often for her liking, and the doctor said it's very natural but nothing about it's natural – at least that's what her dad said.

_Not Natural._

Andy's finally finished his food while April can only sit and think about it. It, at least before, was just another little pronoun that never affected her and now it was everything to her.  _It_ was everything, and she was  _it_ to everyone. Like an object, a thing without and within having no real identity. She was an  _it_ now, and Ann was  _her_. But April has to try and stop thinking about that or else she knows she'll cry and cause a scene. And then questions, and then he'd know.

"You okay?" Andy asks quietly, and he feels so close to April that she can hardly breathe. "I've seen you eat a whole pizza before."

He's pointing to the little half-wrap that's barely been bitten into, and April wants to tell him like nothing else. She knows how he'll react though, how they've all reacted and she's grown tired of being punched in the face. Broken bones didn't suit her, she decided.

"Fine," she gets the word out and shoves herself away from him when his hand rests on her arm.

"Okay," he says quietly and she has to walk back to work because she can feel herself growing insistent at his touch.

The day passes by and April tries not to think about Ann or Andy or anything at all other than ensuring that she never has to look at anything resembling work. Thankfully it had only been a day so the phone calls wouldn't start coming for a few more days – April regularly stayed anywhere besides her previous house – but she wondered just how long it would take them to realize she wasn't coming back this time. At least, she didn't want to be near her father ever again. The unfortunate side effect of staying with Leslie was that April had to stay behind an extra handful of hours than she usually would have, which meant more possible interactions with people – with Andy.

She hates the feeling she gets in her lower gut when she sees him, almost like a sore reminder of her life, and tries to ignore him and everything with which he had to do. It's even worse when he's so close to her, like that day, and he seems like he's trying and cares and his touch is too exhilarating to ignore. Then she has to run, escape to the bathroom or somewhere private to take deep breaths and relax the itching feelings away.

"Ludgate," Andy's in front of the permits counter and she wants to him to be gone, and wonders for a moment if he actually lives there, "what's up? Thought you'd be gone by now."

"Why are  _you_ here still?" she asks defensively, opening an empty folder and staring at it hoping he'd get the message. "You coulda left, like, hours ago."

"Well, that's… true," he says and she has to bite back a laugh. "If I go home though that means I just kinda sit by myself doing nothing."

"What happened to the band?" she voices her confusion, already too interested to back away.

"Burly's got this hot new girlfriend and she's, like, super rich and stuff," he nods while he speaks though his eyes are still on her, "so that's boring. Besides, if you're gonna stay that means we can hang out more. That's cool, right?"

"Sure," she manages to get out and there's a faint smile on her lips and she can feel it but she doesn't care.

They don't really say anything much after that, which is all right by April since when Andy talked too much he usually ends up saying something either stupid or becomes oddly observant in the blink of an eye. The last thing she needs is for him to become observant of her. She half-expects Ann to come in for some reason and walk away with him, almost like the dreams and say the words that make April's entire body quiver in fear of, but that never happens. It's another hour of just them when Leslie walks out, and there's a sad exchange of glances she shares with Andy that puts April's entire body on hold.

_No._

Then he does the shitty attempt at stealing looks she's known guys to do – to other people, at least – and his eyes do that sort of roll over her arms and he actually breaks to look at her very closely. It feels like her entire body is exposed and April looks at Leslie pleadingly, but there's something else there.

"April," and when the older woman starts talking she knows it's too late to back out. "I've been talking with some people…"

With a shrug of her head to the side, she indicates to Andy who stands up incredibly quickly.

"Yeah, and I asked someone else about it and… uh," Andy's losing focus but April feels like she has to figure out a method of escape before it's too late.

Sadly she knows that Andy would be able to grab her too quickly and Leslie likely already made sure there wasn't any way out of this for her. Somehow it felt worse than just confiding in herself and pretending everyone just didn't notice her.

"Ann, he talked to Ann," Leslie explains and April groans, "and she wants to make sure you're doing all right and none of this will have any lasting damage."

"No," April says far too quickly, "I'm fine, there's nothing wrong with me."

_He can't know._

It's all she can think, because if Ann knows – Ann, the beautiful nurse,  _she_  – if she knows then Andy will know. There's no way he wouldn't know and April can't bear feeling his look of disgust.

"April, if you think I'm this stupid to not have figured this out by now," Leslie says forcefully, putting her hands on desk, "if you think I haven't figured out why you left your parents' house with signs of abuse all over you – then I've been doing an awful job here."

"I don't – it's not," and April feels a ripping in her chest like she wants to tell her but it's impossible. Not with him there, not with Andy  _there_.

"April," Andy's hand falls on hers and she sees a crease in his forehead, a care in his voice that hits her harder than any thrown fist.

She has to pull away from him or she just might break, the truth might slip out, and April sits back down in her chair. The hormones are doing their work, and she can feel unwanted mood swings filter through her body in that very instant – searching for the right one, the correct solution. So all she can do is cry. Break down in the middle of her work in front of Leslie and Andy: one person she thought she could trust and the other that made April finally make the hardest decision of her life and continue with the transition.

It seems to catch Leslie by surprise, and Andy's definitely unprepared for it, but it doesn't take long until Andy's next to her and crouched down by the chair. Almost like he wants to be there, and then his arm moves around her shoulder and he's pulling her into his body and – for an instant – she thinks he knows. It feels like he's always known, and that it's okay and everything will be okay, but then she has to pull herself back to reality when Leslie's standing there in front of her desk and looks guilty at her own brusque attack.

"It's okay, I'm just…" and April has to take a deep breath because now she wants to say it. "I have something I want to say, y'know."

"We can help you April," Leslie says and she doesn't even know how much she already has. "You can stay at my house as long as you like, your parents can't do anything about that, and we can find somewhere for you far away from them-"

"It's not about that," and April's heart beats so fast she wonders if she'll die if she actually says it. "It's… I…"

April falters, her voice suddenly unable to work, and all she can think about is turning to see Andy horrified when he realizes the girl he's kissed twice now and who desperately wants him isn't who she says she is – that April isn't  _she_. Then his hand's holding hers again and his look is just  _Andy_  and part of her wonders if it'll ever be okay with him even if he does come to terms with it without having to physically harm her.

"Andy, I really like you and I want you to promise me something," she has to ask him.

"Sure, totally – anything," he sits up a little straighter and she wants everything here to be so real. "I'll do whatever."

"Just don't hit me," is all she can say.

Leslie has to turn around and walk away, and April can feel the insecurity bubbling to a font when she says it. Andy looks confused, and almost hurt, like that was the last thing he expected. It's wonderful that he thinks that now –  _now_ when April is April and not when she was  _he_ – but it doesn't matter what he thinks before. What matters to her is what he does when he knows.

"I think I can handle that," he chuckles and she cracks a small smile despite still wanting to drown in her own tears.

"Andy, seriously, just…" she sighs and slumps in the chair a little bit, "I don't even know how to say it actually."

"Then just say something, I dunno," he says by now so confused and she can't blame him, "I always say stuff and have no idea what it's supposed to mean."

"Andy, do you like me?" she asks, trying to find a way to bridge the gap she was struggling jumping over.

"Yeah, like a lot," he doesn't hesitate to respond.

"Okay," and April takes a few short, hard breaths before continuing, "do you like me because I'm a girl?"

It hurts to say it, and she hasn't even really said anything to him  _really_ , and Andy's only reaction is a confused look. She has to blink away a few tears when Leslie returns because she just doesn't know how to tell him this.

"Just answer that, please," she begs him.

"I mean… I don't know?" he answers, and she can tell he's being honest. "It's not  _because_ you're a girl you're just the coolest girl that I've ever known – no offense Leslie."

"None taken," Leslie whispers, sitting down on April's desk.

"Would you…" April's crying again and she can't help it because he's already answered her question unwittingly. "If I were a guy, would you still like me?"

April can see Leslie come to the realization immediately, but she does her best not to overreact. April's thankful for that because Andy's clearly struggling with it.

"What, like, would I still want to be with you if you were a dude?" he suggests.

"Sure," she quickly says.

"I don't know… I mean, maybe," he considers her answer very carefully. "I've never had that with a guy before so I dunno. Maybe? Who knows – life's too short I always-"

"Andy, no," she whispers. "I..."

It's a few breaths, only a handful of seconds, but to April telling him this is more important than anything else. Nothing else matters to her other than making sure he knows who she is, who she  _was_ , and she'd give up the next year to explain it to him if it meant acceptance. Even her own mother was only so supportive before it became clear April was alone in this, alone before Leslie and Andy. At least that's what she hoped the results were. It's so hard to think of the words though and she can feel jolting pains all throughout telling April to stop and go back to living in shame and fear of what they'd think. Then she sees Andy look at her expectantly, rubbing her back idly and with more care in his eyes than she thought possible from him, and there's Leslie who's just waiting for her to tell him. She knows, and April knows she can trust Leslie with this information, but he's a different story.

"I'm confused April," he admits, "but I really like you and if you need to tell me something this important... I, uh, don't know."

"It's really hard to just  _say_ ," she returns and laughs a little, looking at Leslie who just nods to her silently.

There are a few more moments where they stay still, sitting the three of them together in the Parks offices by April's desk and she's just happy that two of the closest people in her life - as much as she would hate to admit it on any other day, it was true - are being  _there_  and letting her take the time she needs. They're, both of them, letting her be  _her_.

"Andy, you remember my birthday party?" she asks, because it's one of the most important days for her.

"Sure, I think. I mean, I kinda remember drinking a lot and you being mad at me," he looks down and gives her a little grin. "You looked amazing, I mean you always do but you looked..."

"Beautiful?" she offers, her voice catching a little in her throat.

"Yeah," he agrees readily. "What does that have to do with this?"

It wasn't that he thought she was attractive, or that he was giving her his attentions, but April felt accepted already in that moment. It made saying the next sentence so much easier, even if she was worried halfway through that it had been a mistake to tell him. She should have just gone through with her plan of waiting until after she was through with her physical transition, at least that's what she thinks. Still, the words spill out of her without struggle.

"I used to be... Andy, I'm not a girl. I mean, I am - I am in here," she has to rectify that statement because he's confused and it's fine because she knows there's so much physical evidence saying otherwise, and she points to herself to punctuate the statement. "I wasn't though, for a long time. I've always been a girl, and somewhere I always knew that, but not to other people - not to everyone else. I've always been  _April_ but if you looked at me just a few years ago you'd call me a he."

She doesn't know what he's going to do now that she's laid everything bare. More bare than any other person she's ever said this to. The only response she can get is quiet while his hand continues its motions on her back. His silence scares her so much that she finds herself continuing. It takes a few seconds to catch her breath because that  _silence_ is so damning and confusing at the same time.

"And I was so afraid that if you knew you'd hate me forever and I don't think I can handle that," she explains.

"Why would I hate you?" Andy asks sincerely, and Leslie is still silent throughout this exchange.

"Because I lied to you, and - and the last time I told someone this they weren't exactly happy about it," she has to look away from him or else she knows he'll give her another confused look and she doesn't want to explain that story. "And I wanted to tell you, I really did, but I was so scared and..."

Andy doesn't let her finish, and when he moves his hands to her shoulders there's a moment where April tenses up and expects it to come - the hit - but it never does, and all he can do is bring her into a tight hug. Leslie bites her lip and looks away, and April doesn't take more than an instant to return the embrace. She doesn't know what's elicited it, but if her last physical memory of Andy gets to be something like this that'll be okay with her. Thankfully when he breaks the hug he's still looking at her no differently - like he's still seeing April.

"I don't want you to be afraid of me," he says and it's a strange, calming voice coming out of him that's at the same time so unlike him but still  _Andy_. "I care about you so much, and I don't - this doesn't change anything about that."

She knows it could be a mistake, and she knows he could still return it with violence, but April kisses him anyways. She can't help when her hands take his head and grab his hair, wanting him so badly to understand and it to be okay, and he doesn't resist. April doesn't stop when he pulls her against his body and April knows he can feel her, she knows he really truthfully  _understands_  what she was about to say right in that moment because her body can barely handle with massive overflow of hormones in her system. He doesn't stop her though, and April's thankful for that at first but she knows it's only a matter of contact before he gets the full force of what that means, so she breaks off prematurely to look at him.

"You're okay with this – with me?" she asks, her voice so infinitesimally small between them she worries he'll never hear her say those words.

"It doesn't matter to me," he's almost quieter than her somehow and Leslie makes a choking noise when he says it. "I really, really like you April. Like, can I put any more really's in front of that before I get my point across?"

She knows he's still not quite there about what this actually means for them, but that's okay. April can't get over the idea that someone in her life that she actually trusts and wants to be around is supporting her now. She can barely feel the movements when she goes back to kiss Andy again and there's no shiver from him or even a second of revulsion in his hands when they go around her waist.


	29. Degenerate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I'm about to subject you to something I haven't forced on anyone in a long time - my poetry.
> 
> With that comes all the mismanaged rhyme schemes that devolve at a whim (like this one!) but I swear it's April/Andy I'm talking about here. Anyways, remember that you can hit me up with requests/prompts on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) or leave feedback/review/comment/whatever wherever you can get your hands on an inbox!

Some things fit just right  
A glove for two  
I'm no object but it's okay  
We've been through more than I can say  
Glass pane, colored bright  
Reds – blues for you  
Insincere too  
Some say we're lost with no clear way  
Who cares; we know right-

From wrong, it's easy  
You – me – that's right  
Everything else is just dead weight  
Nothing, no life, not our branded fate  
Fuck metaphors – sleazy  
Not in the right way, either  
It's all a mess – but we're a mess

I'm okay with a mess  
Tell me, just whisper it –

Are you okay with this mess?  
Me, that is?  
I know I'm a mess, but we're – together –  
We're a controlled chaos  
And I can't stop looking at it

You're that whirlwind picking up speed  
Taking off with all of these shitty analogues  
Taking off with me  
Leaving behind me, you

We're left behind with "us"

And I kinda like it


	30. Congratulations and Ann

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will never, ever, ever happen again. Double post day, that is. I figured a lot of people wouldn't be into the whole poetry thing so I pulled this one off the backburner and decided to post it early. So, yeah, that happened. Don't fret, there will be another chapter tomorrow and all that ish.
> 
> Whatever, enjoy!

Ever since they returned from their brief honeymoon, April had been hearing nothing but congratulations and approvals from random people she didn't even know knew her or Andy. That was fine, since most of the strangers were just walking gags that she could make fun of with Andy later, but there was always one – always one that she couldn't stand hearing niceties from:

Ann.

It didn't matter the occasion – fair-weather or not – but usually April enjoyed drinking by herself, or rather she enjoyed drinking sans-Ann. That night, however, when Andy decided to take her out for a night on the town – which really just meant going to the Snakehole then making out in the parking lot until they either did something that warranted police attention or they woke up the next morning hungover in the same spot – April found herself alone when he made an emergency bathroom stop. She  _was_ alone, at least, until someone stumbled over and sat down next to her.

"H-Hey, April," Ann started with, and already April wanted to abandon Andy and try to explain it to him some other time. "What happened to… to Lake Michigan or whatever?"

"Left," she said sourly, taking another drink and hoping she could drown herself in the murky brown liquid.

Ann sat there for a moment, clearly too intoxicated for her own good and looked to her left for a second before turning back to April. It really didn't make sense to her how this woman was a nurse, but then again she'd seen who Leslie becomes when she's drunk so there wasn't much to hold against her.

"Nope, ain't there," Ann laughs, and it's starting to get uncomfortable.

"Isn't there some gross dude waiting for you somewhere here?" April asked, pointing her drink around the whole of the bar, sure that she'd eventually land on the guy – guys, even.

"Nope," the other woman answered shortly, looking down in her drink.

For a second April wondered what had brought her to the nightclub then, but that was squashed immediately by a cavalcade of insults all lying in wait. They all seemed to come out empty in her mind though. That was definitely different, April thought.

"Sorry," April found herself saying, unsure what she was even supposed to be sorry about.

It wasn't that she hated Ann. There wasn't so much a  _hate_ there as much as April would call it an intense loathing, peppered nicely with a disrespect and annoyance that made that loathing taste sweetly of total disdain. Very few people in Pawnee, let alone the world, deserved that kind of dislike but April could cook it up for Ann. That was all just for Ann and that's what made it so bizarre that her first instinct was to try and empathize with the woman. For what reason, April couldn't tell but she had said it and Ann clearly noticed the sincerity in her voice.

"Thanks April," she says and for a second April's worried there might be a hug or Ann would say something else nice.

Luckily, all that comes out of this exchange at first is silence. Or the little silence there can be found in a grungy nightclub on a Saturday night, but still it was definitely better than the screeching that was coming out of Ann.

"Hey, hey," Ann turned around in her seat in the booth and stared directly at April or at least tried to, "hey… April."

"Hey Ann," April's actually a little concerned just how much the woman's drank, but she definitely won't voice that  _ever_.

"Hey, I know you hate and that's, like, that's cool man," she slurs and puts a hand on April's shoulder. "But I really wanted to con-congratulate you guys – you and, and Andy."

"Uhh, thanks," she responded, not sure what to do other than let her go on whatever tirade she thought necessary. "It, uhh, definitely doesn't mean anything coming from you."

"Yeah, yeah," Ann laughs again and she's all flushed and clearly gone beyond recognition, "I just mean, like… y'know? I mean it's so cool. I had all these super high minded ideals for Andy… like, maybe he'd, like, change or whatever."

Her speech was becoming more and more of a mess, frequently dipping into a mess of syllables that April kept trying to decipher without success. She'd settle for just about anything to make out one consonant from another but Ann started swaying and focusing and refocusing her eyes on April.

"Y'okay, Ann?" April asked warily, unsure if she should prepare for a surprise expectorate or not.

"You guys, though, that's  _real_  y'know? Like, you don't give a shit that he's just Andy…" Ann trailed off, taking another drink from the tall glass in her hand. "You don't  _care_ and that's awesome – you just, y'know, you love him for him. I never could do that, y'know?"

Whether she liked it or not, April had to smile at that comment because at that same time Andy had walked out into the central dance floor and been dragged into dancing with three other people. He couldn't keep up with any of them, and he could barely dance to begin with, so all he ended up doing was tripping one of the girls and spilling some other guy's drink. Rushing over to the booth where April and Ann were, he very nearly knocked Ann over in his rush.

"Hey babe," he nodded to her, sitting down across from them. "Hey Ann!"

"Hi Andy," she mumbled and finally stood up after two unsuccessful attempts. "I'll leave you two… married people alone."

"Later, Ann," Andy shouted to her and despite the sheer quantity of whatever was spilled on him had a gigantic grin on his face.

After Ann left he moved over next to April in a spot where they could watch over the whole dance floor and pick and choose the dumbest people to make fun of. It was probably April's favorite pastime at the Snakehole, especially considering the clientele on the weekends. There weren't many times they did this that she had ever been bored and now that Andy was nuzzling her neck and his hand was riding up her dress it definitely wasn't going to get boring any time soon.

"Oh, what did Ann want?" he suddenly asked and whatever mood he was trying to set melted immediately with that name.

"Nothing," she growled, pushing Andy's hand back to where he had so cruelly removed it.

"Come on, you didn't look like you wanted to kill her," he didn't change his movements but now she knew he was figuring out a tactic he could use against her.

All April could think was that she kind of liked how dirty it was. In the middle of the nightclub, fairly easy to see, and now he was demanding things from her. She knew he could withhold this from her, and she just went with it.

"Oh, she was too busy slamming drinks to say anything too important," she pushed her hips closer to Andy's hand but he gave no quarter.

In fact all he did was give her another expectant look, and April was starting to lose patience with the mood and the situation. Good Lord, April thought, she just wanted him there and then.

"Whatever, she had a bunch of gross nice things to say to me," this time she grabbed Andy's wrist and gave him no way out.

"That's sweet," but April was standing up now, and had pulled him by the wrist to the entrances of the Snakehole.

They walked out, Andy's hands wrapped around her hips and holding her against him while a few people looked on. No one called the cops on them that night, at least from what April could tell. There wasn't a whole lot she could differentiate anymore anyways. To her there wasn't much to think about in the front seat of Andy's car other than to be thankful for how short she was and the folding seats.


	31. Cut - Being

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know what it's like to just want a friend some days, on days when it feels like you're impossibly alone, so this is a sorta play on that. I don't know, it's really comforting to think about and it's things like this - some of these familiar thoughts and moments - that make me cherish whatever friendships and relationships I still have. Makes me thankful for the people in my life.
> 
> Well, that's enough of a soliloquy for today. Enjoy the read, I hope.

Some days April sits back and considers where she is, what her life is, and a bunch of other existential crap she never considered herself at all worried about before. Despite adamantly arguing against it, she still sits and wonders sometimes – what she's really doing, or what the point is in going to school to get some piece of paper so she can go work at some crummy fast food chain anyways, and what benefit any of it all is having on her. More so, she can't stop thinking what it would be like to stop it all.

Then she stops, takes a few deep breaths, and has to remind herself to stop while she's ahead. Existential worry and college fears are all fine and dandy, at least they're healthy and normal according to the unfortunate correspondence she's had over email with the woeful Dr. Andersson, but she has to bring herself back from a darker brink more than a few times. Sometimes it's so easy and all it takes is asking Andy to walk a little closer to her on the street and other times she wants to sit alone, but that’s fine too because he understands and her success rate has gotten so good that it feels almost better. She just likes having him around, almost like some strange companion in her life and for whatever reason that’s more comforting than any other way she’s ever thought of Andy so she starts to stick with that as her preferred description of them.

Sometime in the morning, her phone seeming so far away and part of her not caring at all how early it is, she’s thinking all of this and it all seems and feels so real. Then, inevitably, she thinks what would happen when she can no longer just see the world with Andy. It’s a dumb thought, almost needy and dependent which are two things that April loathes more than most, but it’s still there but the idea is so thin and wispy – undefined. She doesn’t know what to do other than what she’s done at least once a week by now.

"Andy," she quietly says in the middle of the night.

It's not that doesn't try, because he definitely does and she knows it, but sometimes it's sort of disheartening watching him snore through that. But it only takes a little encouragement to wake him, only a few choice words, a few taps, or a bit more personal persuasion before he's ready to face whatever it is that's bothering her. She doesn't have anything for him though, and it's a bit embarrassing when she realizes that as he wakes up from a pretty deep sleep.

"Yeah?" he mutters through a yawn and rubs his eyes. "What's up?"

"I don't know," April answers and it's so stupid that she can't help but laugh.

He chuckles too, and it's kind of bewildering why that's so nice. Then he grunts something and rolls over, taking her hand with his and basically pushing her against his back. But it's okay because that position feels so nice and warm, and whatever was bothering her – something so indistinct and far away she couldn't even attempt to name it – goes away instantly.

 

* * *

 

 

She doesn't express it in tears, and he knows that's not really her style anymore not that it ever really was something she copped to frequently, and she doesn't say it outright to him – again, he knows. Andy's known her for too long to know anything else, and some part of him is tired of it at this point. He's not tired of being there, or even when he's told to be elsewhere, but he's so tired of seeing her like this. It's defeat, and it's weighty, and it's forced on him when April feels so alone but Andy knows that he's only allowed to support her when she wants it. He can only hope that this day, while she sits up in bed and skips every class to stay in the apartment and think to herself, he can be there.

Even at work, which is still only a few dozen feet away from the door to their apartment above the bar, he can't stop his concerns. She's stopped for an entire year, and he's so proud of her for it, but it's still bothering him to think that she might give in while he's gone. He spills more drinks and screws up two orders in the span of a lunch hour and he takes the threats of being fired in stride because Andy's worries aren't even remotely connected to working in that shitty place. When the clock strikes four and the actual bartender relieves him, Andy just wants to go back upstairs and talk to April. She's still in bed, staring at her laptop screen intently and typing away at something when he flops down on the covers beside her.

"What's up?" he asks, putting his hand idly on her leg and tapping his fingers there.

"Homework," she explains quickly, still typing while she talks.

Andy doesn't know what to say to her without making it seem like he's worried. Despite the evidence to the contrary, April still holds on to the idea that he shouldn't be so concerned about how she's doing but he can't help himself. It's almost an instinct to him at this point and he isn't sure if that's a good thing or not, if there's something wrong with life being so circular and centralized on her, but it's so engrained in him he can't think of her any other way. She says it's gross sometimes when he voices that, or when he attempts to and can't really figure out the words, so he tries not to think about her like that.

Suffice to say, that proves impossible for Andy.

"You wanna do something, like go out or…" April raises her eyebrow because his ideal date has always been going at most five feet away from the bed, "I dunno or we can sit here."

"Stop being weird," she reprimands, but after a second she closes the laptop and looks him over carefully.

"What?" he looks around and for a second Andy wonders what's wrong with his face.

He thinks he's done something wrong though he's thankful that April's saying things and being her usual dry self – things that scare Andy a little bit but only when they sort of fall by the wayside – because she just shakes her head at him and returns to her homework. Sighing, he pushes himself closer to the pillow and next to her. There's no TV in the small room, and to be honest it would be an interesting feat getting one in there, so their equivalent of sitting on the couch huddled around a screen is sitting in bed watching something on April's old laptop.

"Gimme ten minutes," she says slowly, not taking her eyes off of the document on the screen. "I'll finish this first then we can do whatever it is you're talking about."

Silently, he watches her type and delete sentence after sentence. He's not really reading what she's writing anyways but she's frequently writing an entire paragraph and then erasing the whole thing without a second thought before rewriting it and being equally annoyed at the result. When she's finally finished with her revisions, she's met with less resistance than usual when all she wants to watch are bad syndicated shows and infomercial collections on YouTube. Andy's just happy to be right there, and he thinks that maybe he doesn't need to worry about her every single second of his day like some overprotective dog. A bad day didn't necessarily mean a lapsed day, he figures, and finds himself falling asleep in front of the laptop with one arm around April's shoulder and then other slung over the side of the bed.

 


	32. Manners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stupid early season fluff anyone? I love writing this stuff, and I'm sure there's some kind of reason why, but I really don't know it. Either way, sometimes it can get hard figuring out something that isn't just a rehash so if you get some cool ideas of your own send them in to my [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) or wherever you're comfortable and I'll get around to it. 
> 
> Have fuuuuuuun.

Lunch break's a not so uncommon "date" for them at least if the word date applies to them at all. It was such a weird, sort of unsure  _whatever_ it was they had. April doesn't mind it, especially because she's not even sure Andy understands that's what it is and leaving him clueless with a small kiss afterwards is weirdly hilarious to her. It's just another healthy part of her day when she watches his face go sort of blank and his face break out into a combined grin and confusion. Also, she gets to make fun of that Kyle guy and that is literally always funny, to everyone, so that was a bonus.

"Yo, lunch" she called out to him while putting two bags on the little counter.

As if on cue, the guy that was sitting down stood up and sighed sadly. He looked at the half-finished job on his shoes but continued walking anyways. By now people understood to just get out of the way around that time.

"Nice, what'd you get?" he asked, eyes lighting up when she passed him one of the small bags.

"Cafeteria burgers," she explained.

"These things are so gross," he said but was hurriedly unwrapping the burger. "I love 'em."

At first they agreed to trade off days, first Andy would buy lunch and then April and so on, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that April was just buying it every time they did this. She was just happy that buying food for two in Pawnee wasn't exactly an expensive endeavor and she just liked hanging around with him. With him the potential for stupid rose exponentially which was, to April, totally worth every cent. Normally it would be incredibly boring just sitting there with someone else, eating and talking, but this was weirdly okay with her, and Andy wasn't ever going to pass on free food. The only thing getting in the way of the silent fun was sitting there watching and listening to him eat.

"Dude," she exclaimed after one particularly noisy few seconds of chewing.

"What?" he looked side to side, unsure what the problem was.

"You eat like a cow," she scrunched her nose up when he continued to make those horrible noises.

There was a point where funny met gross, and Andy straddled that line all the time when he ate, but then he'd find that line and cross it with a running start. She could deal with seeing his food when he ate with his mouth open, and that was funny because he'd show it off to people walking by, but listening to him was a different story.

"Well, you're a… cow," he retorted, bobbing his head. "Like, a short cow."

April shook her head silently and went back to eating her food, but Andy sat and stared at his sandwich like it was going to fight back. She couldn't take her eyes off his odd behavior, watching him study the burger closely, and she was starting to get concerned for how hard he was thinking about this.

"How am I supposed to eat?" he pulled his head back away from the burger and put it gently up to his lips, putting them over the bread and slowly gnashing his teeth. "Like this?"

It was so muffled by the food still in his mouth that April could barely make out what he was saying. She had to stifle a laugh while chewing, covering her mouth so nothing came shooting out inadvertently, so she just shook her head for an answer. After a little more chewing she made an obvious demonstration by holding her food up to her mouth clearly enough for him to see.

"No, just… don't make a billion weird noises when you eat," she told him, putting her own burger to her mouth and chewing, breathing through her nose loudly to make a point. "See?"

"Oh," he said slowly, taking the sandwich back and chewing on it while making loud, abrasive snorts like an angry bull being rallied back to a pen.

It was only a few seconds of his labored breaths before his face looked like it was losing its color and he had to stop eating. April had already finished in that time, watching his bizarre attempt at figuring out something as simple as breathing through the nose, and wondering what she'd done to pick out this one. Still, with each snort it became funnier and funnier and that thought started to slip away.

"This is really hard," he huffed, looking at the last few bits of the burger like they were his Everest. "Manners are hard."

"That's what I always hear," she laughed, watching him take a deep breath and stare down the final bite.

It was getting weird watching him look at the greasy patty like it was some sort of challenge. Instinct took over and April took his hand and pushed the food into his mouth, not really concerned that her fingers were technically in his mouth and he was looking at her like she'd just shot him. She patted the sides of his mouth, happy with the results as he chewed slowly and breathed normally through his nostrils.

Then, suddenly, she realized what had just happened. It was sort of gross, in a way, but it had just seemed like the obvious move to her in the moment. Either way, Andy was looking at her like something was supposed to happen and she was starting to get uncomfortable.

"Well," she stood up, brushing her hands off on her pants and throwing her bag over her shoulder. "I gotta… y'know, work. Gotta go do that."

"Sure," Andy nodded slowly, but he didn't take his eyes off hers for what was beginning to feel like an eternity.

"Whatever, later," she said quickly, pushing herself forward with the intent to pull the same stunt as usual.

It was supposed to be a brief, little peck that was meant to be nothing more than a confusion tactic in their bizarre not-really-relationship.  _Supposed to be_  was the key phrase because April couldn't help herself when Andy's hand pushed aside hair so he could rest it on the back of her neck, and she leaned in for a deeper kiss. It was awkward for her having to stand in front of the high-rise chair so she stepped up onto the little platform where people rested their feet and soon Andy was standing up to meet her.

It felt strange and sudden, but April also kind of liked it. Except for the taste of processed beef and bad dental hygiene mixing together – that was admittedly kind of gross – but still she couldn't figure out a reason to stop. Even so, she had to break because she was worried where  _her_ hands would end up and where this would all eventually escalate to.

"I'll, uh, catch you later," he finally answered after a few heavier breaths than before.

"Yeah, sure," she caught herself smiling but didn't really see a reason to stop doing it.

When he returned hers with a big grin and his weird, only Andy way of looking at her like she was the only person in the room she had to look away, walking away before anything more drastic happened. She didn't really stop smiling for the rest of the day, except for that time that Jerry asked for a bunch of scans of something and April couldn't help but give him a sour grimace. It didn't stop her from resuming the stupid smirk from before though.


	33. Burt Macklin and the Ring of Commitment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late night! Agh! I know, I know. However, I got an awesome, anonymous request on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) last night that made me laugh way too hard so I had to fill it. Unfortunately, tonight was also date night and I got pizza and now there's a late post because reasons and whatever.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

Other than the occasional footsteps outside in the hallways, or even Jerry humming something, it was quiet in the Parks offices. For a day when Andy was in that was a surprise, and it was a nice change of atmosphere, but there was always something that brought reality back to them. There was  _always_ something to remind Ron why he should have just kept his doors shut at all times.

"Ron!" Andy yelled, clearing the distance between his desk and the door far too quickly for it to close in time.

He came into his office seconds before they finally swung to a close, chest heaving and huffing massive breaths. Clearly he hadn't kept up his exercise regime, because Andy was red in the face from the short sprint. Something else was on his mind because he kept wringing his hands and beginning sentences, pointing to them before putting them back on his hips and walking around.

"Please, come in," Ron grunted. "No, it's no bother. Why don't you have a seat as well?"

With a stiff wave of his hand, he gestured towards a chair. Andy pushed it in front of the desk and sat down, finally gathering enough oxygen to recolor his face correctly before speaking up again.

"Ron," he puffed out, pointing to his hand. "I might have, uhh, displaced… err, no I mistook my, uh-"

"What?" the older man shook his head quickly once, trying to speed up the process.

"I lost my wedding ring," Andy finally explained. "I tried looking around in here everywhere but I have no idea what happened to it."

"Okay," Ron said bluntly.

There were a few moments of silence afterwards. Andy sat there, pointing to his hand like that was supposed to mean something, and Ron kept his position with his hands folded. It seemed as if this was apparently important. Realizing who he was talking to, Andy took a different approach.

"C'mon Ron, this is important I think," he said. "Besides, that thing was kind of expensive. I think, I don't know – I stole it."

"You stole it?" Ron asked.

"Well, technically April stole it."

Again they sat quietly for a second while Andy thought. It shouldn't be  _that_ big of a deal, he figured, but something was still scary about telling her that he lost the ring. At best he'd have to steal a new one and at worst he'd have to buy it, both of which were terrifying. There was also the chance that April would get mad at him for being such a clumsy idiot but that happened on a weekly basis so he'd grown a pretty thick skin about that in general.

"Why are you talking to me about this?" Ron asked seriously, moving forward in his chair slightly.

"I dunno, you're the smartest guy I know so I thought you'd be able to help," Andy said, giving him an unsure glance before going back to looking at his hands.

It looked weird without the ring, almost naked. The feeling of the air on the portion of his finger where it usually sat was even stranger. There were only a couple of seconds until Ron groaned.

"Not that I care," he pointed and gave Andy a stern look, "but I'm guessing that just telling her will be an okay move, son. I don't think you'll have a problem."

"Really?" Andy wondered. "Did you ever lose any of your rings?"

"No, but I've also never worn any of them," he explained.

The doors to Ron's office slowly moved open. Andy stood up and smiled, running back out of the room and clearing the threshold just in time, while Ron closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Despite what Ron had said, Andy still had a strong feeling to get his hand caught in something or pour a bunch of mustard in a ring around his finger, but he knew to soldier on or things would just get worse for him.

All he had to do was wait for April to leave a meeting, and then tell her and then everything would be all right. At least that's what he told himself until he started to really think about it. She wouldn't just be mad at him – no, she'd be  _furious_. When a small part of his brain asked why that made any sense, Andy didn't have time to think up a reason because April was already walking back to her desk. She had an agitated expression and walked with her shoulders slumped, clearly beaten from the fifteen minute mandatory meeting, and Andy could feel his heart thundering.

When she sat down he followed her, standing awkwardly in front of her desk until she looked up and around him like there was some sort of trick waiting.

"Yeah?" she asked him shortly.

There was a short span of time where Andy looked over to see Ron looking intently at the two of them. Clearly, he didn't want to be bothered for the rest of the day and was hoping to see this pan out well for him. Andy, however, was still overcome by a strictly baseless, unknown fear.

"Nothing, everything's fine. Don't even ask about it, it's fine," Andy suddenly blurted far too loudly, throwing his hands up. "Nothing's wrong here."

April looked around, confused, while Andy started to walk back to his desk with his arms still up like airplane wings. Ron wasn't thrilled with this change of tactic.

"Andrew," his voice quickly rose.

Turning around, Andy scratched the back of his neck and stared at the floor before he sat on his desk. Finally looking back to April, who had a combination of uncertainty and worry on her face, he took a deep breath.

"I think, I uhh," his throat was strangely dry. "I might have, maybe… or, no I did-"

"Andy, are you okay?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and walking over to him.

"Yeah, but I mean I think I lost my ring and I'm sorry," he quickly got out, biting his knuckle.

He closed his eyes as if expecting some torrent of screaming to begin, but when it didn't he opened one slightly to see April standing in front of him with a smirk on her face. Okay, he could deal with being poked fun at for a little while. That was much easier than an argument.

"You know what this means, don't you?" she said, her smirk changing to a wry smile.

"Um, no?" he asked warily, pulling his head back slightly and wondering what devious plan she had in mind.

Instead of responding with words, she reached into her back pocket and produced a pair of dollar-store sunglasses. The same pair he'd turned in not that long ago.

"It looks like we've got a new case for Burt Macklin," she grinned and opened her palm.

Andy gave the glasses a cautious glance before reaching for them, but April pulled her hand away at the last second. She shook her head and put them on her own face.

"And his new partner, Cathy O'Donahue," she crossed her arms and looked up to meet his eyes. "I managed to get you back on the force after hearing about this… incredibly important case."

"Honey, the glasses are supposed to be my thing…" he whispered.

"Look, just because we've been put on this case together doesn't give you the right to call me honey," she explained, maintaining her posturing stance. "Besides babe, I thought this could be cool. You always get to be the tough one."

"Oh, I get it," Andy nodded, smiling and straightening his back. "Sorry ma'am."

"Yeah, it's a real give and take son," for a second April moved to hold a cigarette that wasn't in her mouth, forgetting which character she was, before correcting herself. "Now, where's the last time you remember seeing this… ring?"

"Um, I think I was at my desk," he turned around and scanned the top of the small table. "And then I lost it."

He sat there staring at his desk, holding his chin and wondering, while April moved over to the other side of the desk. When she passed him her hand brushed over his ass, and Andy smiled at her but she only cocked her head in confusion. He couldn't tell what her actual expression was through the dark shades but he could tell where this specific set of characters was destined to end up.

"Were you anywhere else tonight?" she inquired, sitting down at his desk and opening all of the drawers.

"No, sir," he said quickly, passing over his own mistake when April gave him another wry smile. "I was here all day, except for when I went out for lunch."

"And where was that?" she stood up, crossing her arms again and looking him up and down.

"JJ's," he said, shaking his head like it was the most obvious thing. "Of course, I definitely ate it."

"No," she stopped him from walking out to the bathrooms, "I think we'll just check over at the diner first."

"Good move, partner," he agreed.

They made it to the parking lot and Andy's car, and all the way down he tried to remember where he had sat down and what he ordered. Maybe this was the key to the mystery. April was so good at helping him figure out tough stuff like this, and this new O'Donahue character was… different. He definitely liked where it was going, that was for sure.

When they were about to leave, Andy reached into his pocket to fish out the keys he hit something heavy. Something metallic, and circular, and almost  _ring-like_. He laughed immediately when his hand circled around the thing and it fit perfectly onto his hand.

"Hey babe," he said through the laughter when she gave him another confused look. "Remember how I always take my ring off when I'm eating pancakes because it gets all sticky."

"Because you eat them with your hands, yes," she finished, like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Andy, really?"

"Yeah, but… um, I was thinking that maybe we just skip out on the rest of the day," he said, a little quieter this time. "We can, uh, try this one out some more? At home?"

April just gave him another smile, sat in the passenger seat, and Andy followed suit with a dumb grin plastered on his face. The case of the missing wedding ring was complete, and it was time for a little R&R.


	34. Trying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be blunt today: I'm not sure how much more I have in me. I love this pair so much, and I love writing them like you wouldn't believe, and I'm so grateful for all the feedback and support and readership and everything. However, it's difficult. This isn't easy, even today proving a massive problem for me in terms of scheduling and getting an actual idea.
> 
> I think that I honestly would love to keep writing 1-2k every single day for the rest of time about these two adorable goons, but it's harder than that. I hate coming off like a whiny egotist here with all of this "oh, woe is me" nonsense but I knew from the onset that I'd need to have a healthy stable of requests/prompts before I could continue this. In my infinite wisdom, I decided to start burning through those rather rapidly out of some sort of obligation to make it clear that I use all of these awesome prompts.
> 
> Anyways, this is becoming overly long and probably worrisome. I'm not saying the end of the Daily is close at hand, but I'm not taking away options. I just want to make it clear how much of this is a labor of love to the fandom and to these characters (also it's a fun challenge, but shhh).

 

It's so stupid, and she doesn't even really like the song all that much, but she asks Andy to play it anyways. Then when he gets up on stage and announces the dedication, she gets a weird, almost queasy aching about it. Maybe it's because Ann is right next to her and at the same time it seems so stupid and awesome and a thousand other things, but maybe it's because Ann gives her a perplexed look and asks her something stupid. Either way April answers her blithely, too busy being simultaneously annoyed at her boyfriends and trying to figure out why Andy seemed so cool.

And why she cared  _at all_ was another mystery April would eventually have to unravel, but for now she would just be content with the idea of Ann being jealous of something she did. Then April wonders why that's a thought that she has at all – like some kind of reversal, as if April would ever be  _jealous_ of someone like Ann – but Andy's looking at her with thinly veiled intent as he sings.

"Just thinking of you," he croons without taking his eyes off of April, "and the way you look tonight."

And, for some reason, that odd rumbling is back and she guesses it's just hunger pains or something. So she has to go get something to eat or else she might just explode either from the spontaneous, uncontrollable smiling or the proximity to Ann.

 

* * *

 

 

April doesn't really get the idea behind birthday parties other than this one, the one where she can legally drink in a private establishment. All of it's such a dumb marketing scheme, and she's heard Ron's lectures so many times about this that she's gone to his way of thinking on the things, but there's something a little bit cooler about this one at least for a while. She thinks maybe it's literally only the alcohol. That definitely brought her spirits up, but she can't deny that she's worried when Andy doesn't show up for a bit. But that wears off with a few more shots, and then he gets there and it's kind of all right.

At least until she fucks it up. Well, it wasn't entirely  _her_ fault – obviously he started it so it's his fault – but some part, some sickeningly mature part, of April's brain is telling her it's dumb. Everything seems so stupid, all this weird jealously (a word that she hates the feel of so much she can barely think it anymore).

But she has to put up with it, because Andy's already given up and there's no reason to keep worrying about him.

 

* * *

 

 

Trying, that's the word she tries to work with. Maybe there was a lot more to be done to get Andy to realize his own feelings than she originally thought. But she doesn't like how the word feels on her, almost like it's expecting her to grow and adapt to him in a way that just doesn't suit April, and so she stops trying.

Then the emptiness hits her, like a blank weight that's got Andy's stupid face plastered all over it, and it's even more bewildering. She doesn't have anything to compare it to – literally nothing in her life has compared to this feeling – so April chalks it up to some stupid adult thing that shouldn't be happening to her. No, April was too good for this withering detachment.

She could  _totally_ keep herself from doing at all remotely concerning him. Which is why, naturally, she sleeps with basically any guy that looks at her and makes sure to tell Andy about every single one of them. Because, of course, she's above all of this and she just wants to shove his face in it.

 

* * *

 

 

Ron knows a lot about quite a bit of things, and April knows he's usually right when it comes to reading people too, but in this one scenario he's just being an idiot. He doesn't know anything, especially when it came to that crushing thought that maybe she didn't want to leave for Indianapolis just to make Andy sad or angry or whatever his reaction would be. Maybe, somewhere, thinking about that at all was a whole lot more painful than she'd like to let on – but she had to, it was basically the only way she could keep going without admitting that she hated that lonely feeling in her chest.

"Maybe moving to Indianapolis just to get back at Andy's a good idea," Ron shrugs slightly, looking down at his coffee mug before continuing. "What do I know?"

Then she gets that picture – one she keeps only to bring up every once and a while to either her sister or Andy – and that oppressive airiness feels stupid. All it takes is April asking her nicely, and basically giving in to whatever alcohol purchasing demands she has, and then Andy's back in City Hall asking her for more things to do.

She's already made up her mind about not going to Indianapolis, but part of her still has to make a show about it. There's something that's still in self-denial, like Andy's going to disappear in a puff of smoke if they get any sort of closure over this childish back-and-forth, so she scoffs at him and gives him a badly faked look of disbelief. Then he starts talking and when he mentions that he's willing to basically do whatever insanity she can think of just to maybe –possibly, with the tiniest chance of success – get her to stay back, and not even to rethink him just to  _stay_ in Pawnee, that illusion breaks so easily.

Even though she made her decision before going to see him, there might have been some bit of April that was worried where his head was in all of this. Weirdly, she's wondering how Andy will act as if she's expecting something of him more than whatever he's capable of.

Luckily for April, Andy's capable of a whole lot more than she's really ever thought possible.


	35. Cool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's cold as hell here today, and that's literally all that inspired this little bit of fluff. Seriously, why is it so frigid on the East Coast today? Whatever, I hope you guys have fun with this one because it's literally just a super saccharine 1k.
> 
> Remember you can send any feedback or requests/prompts to my [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask)!

Andy's busy trying to figure out how the stupid thermostat works, and if they even have any gas to heat the house, because the only thing he's hearing from April is how much she hates the cold. She hates a lot of things, he's learning. With Burly out for the weekend April decided she would stay with him for a few days, and in this early stage of their relationship he was definitely not going to complain. Except for the times when she started talking about how much she hated everything because that was always a bummer, so he'd try a bunch of different ways to get her to have a better outlook on them.

Syrup was an easy one, and a surprising one considering how messy she otherwise was, and all it took for her to get the hint of it was him mentioning cautiously that it's good for a  _lot_ of different things. She definitely liked that, and he wasn't going to complain. Other things, like all the reality shows he watches, were a different story. And, as it turns out, she  _really_ hates being cold. It's not even winter yet, but the chilly Fall morning isn't particularly comfortable for her – sitting on the couch, legs crossed and brought up, rubbing her shoulders and bouncing in place – so he's taken it upon himself to work this out.

"Andy, seriously," she complains, "it's, like, five degrees in here. How do you deal with this?"

"Well," he starts, pressing a button and seeing no response on the little screen, "Burly usually does all of this stuff. Like, y'know, buying things and making sure that it's not freezing in here."

"Didn't he tell you how to do that?" she sounds a little incredulous, looking at him like he's insane.

"No," he takes a step back to survey the small white square.

"Ugh," she groans, putting her head in her hands.

If he was going to be honest, Andy had no idea if he was even supposed to be in the house over the weekend. In fact, it  _was_ a little strange that the front door was locked. April managed to pick the lock, after a couple seconds of being pissed at Andy until the cold of the night would get a lot more oppressive than either of them wanted, but what they didn't realize was that getting inside wasn't much better of a plan.

Pressing another button, Andy realized that the thermostat wasn't going to respond any time soon to his attempts. Even he knew what that meant – it wasn't going to be getting any warmer any time soon. When he sat down on the couch, April gave him a cold stare that told him she knew the same thing. Then another idea seemed to dawn on her judging by the change in her look, and Andy wasn't sure if the small smile was good or not.

"All right, I don't wanna freeze to death in here," she says as she pushes herself up from the couch.

Instead of leaving like he figures she would, because keeping April interested in sticking around him proves to be one of the hardest things Andy's ever done in his life, she walks over in front of him. Pushing him back into the couch, she furls her legs up in his lap and manages to find a position where she's sitting on his lap and facing him at the same time without it feeling like a contortionist's nightmare.

"Yeah, this is pretty comfortable," she sighs, digging her head into Andy's chest and nuzzling his neck after a few seconds.

Andy doesn't hesitate to put an arm around her and sit there, enjoying the comfortable closeness. He's a little surprised at the innocence of the whole thing, and how content she seems being there, but that's no problem for Andy. That's what's originally on his mind at least until she doesn't stop moving up from his neck to his jaw, bringing her lips to a stop at his mouth. The slight heat from her breath warms his lips, making them stand out even more to him – making this seem even more of a ridiculous situation than it already was.

"Hey," he looks down at her without moving his head, trying not to focus on how good she looks all bundled up next to him and staring at him with intent bright in her eyes.

"Hey," she whispers back, trailing off hastily when she finally closes the minute distance between them.

One thing he's sure she likes is kissing. April likes it quite a bit, if the frequency of it is any indication. Basically any time they're not saying something – and sometimes when he's something and she's being quiet – she suddenly kisses him. Sometimes it's intense, and there's a lot of biting and tongues and he can barely keep up with her, but then there's times like this where she just sort of grazes her lips against his and there's barely any force behind it. She closes her eyes and he can hear, and in this circumstance feel, her exhale deeply when their lips meet. Andy doesn't really know what to call it other than tender, and that just sounds so weird in his own head that he pushes it away.

But then her hands are on his shoulders and she's pushing her chest up against his in an attempt to get a better position on his lap, eventually settling on a barely different posture than before. She pulls her head back, rolling her lips and looking at him intently and he's not sure if there's supposed to be something he's supposed to say here or not. It's all kind of weird to Andy, on top of everything else, that April occasionally has these moments where she seems to let her guard down and become someone else. Not a completely different person, April was still there, but like she removed a mask and let him in for a little while.

It was, and in the cold air it made him laugh, pretty cool.


	36. Yet Shine You Did

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This morning I had a weird writing spree on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) where I wrote a bunch of nonsense about April's character and it ended up spawning a request that really intrigued me. I've always had a theory that April deals with depression/self-esteem issues, and that's clear because I wrote a bunch of chapters under Cut talking about that, but I think this is totally feasible within the canon timeline and without the self-harm. So I took one of this anon's requests (namely, dealing with insecurity concerning Ann) and I had a little jaunt with it. 
> 
> Remember that you can throw your requests at me on tumblr, or wherever I have an inbox that you know of!
> 
> Title is a lyric from My Dying Bride's "The Crown of Sympathy"

_You're not worth it._

It's always been there, somewhere inside, and that feeling and its presence make April  _hate_. Inside, she feels an innate distrust between her body and her mind like a feeling that's telling her she's a spit-take for humanity, and it makes her hate them all. She's not sure who, what, or even  _why_ it's inside of her every day but as far back as she can remember there hasn't been a day where the writhing tendrils didn't cover everything else. People ask her innocent questions, and all she wants to do is snap back. So she does, and they react like any sane person would. April thinks she's pleased with the results – that's what she tells herself all the time – but that feeling's always so fleeting. All that's left afterwards is an empty, flat impression.

It's not physical, she knows on some level that that isn't her problem, and it's barely even emotional but there's an intellectual misunderstanding going on between different aspects of herself. April can't link the part of her mind that's telling her that she's a person worthy of others' time and the part that's incessant about her failures. She just can't get them to meet and have it out plainly in front of her, where she can decide whether or not she's lying to herself, so April continues life accepting that she just can't fathom people being more than aesthetically interested in her as a human at best. She's less than that – she's an object.

Years, it's years like this.

She can't understand the feelings she has, and it's almost hilarious how  _teenaged_ she's become just in that one phrase, but then she slips idly into adulthood and they're still there. Almost like a phase that's never meant to be stuck to, that feeling sits in its ingrown root at the base of everything and shrieks whenever she tries to pull it out – that self-loathing is so harsh against her skin and yet so  _real_. So April just goes on, like that's fine and a normal thing to have inside of her, and it's so much easier to eject people out of her life or just let them never get in at all. It's so much easier for her to just listen to the yells inside her mind, the persistence of their groaning disapproval, than to keep trying to root out the real issue.

Years of it, feeling like that, and April never questions any of it. It's just  _life_  and it's all she's ever known.

 

* * *

 

Something about Ann – something about the way she holds herself, or maybe she's just really annoying – bothers April. Here was a woman that had things seemingly put together, in some semblance of order and life falling into place for her, but April was stuck as just April.

 _Just_ April versus Ann.

That's what April thinks when she first figures out just who Andy is. Not that she's unaware that there's a shoeshine stand in City Hall all of a sudden, but that's not what she's worried about. There's something else, and she's afraid of it – so scared of what it means – that she tries to ignore it. When incredible Ann could throw him out like old garbage, what chance would April have in keeping his attentions, and that wasn't even considering matching up to what Ann could offer him, and there it is again.

_You've got nothing on Ann._

_Who are you in comparison?_

She can feel them when he looks at her just then, those little black and red hands pulling at her chest and telling her she's not enough. But April  _wants_ to try, and even if she can't be good enough she wants to at least feel like she's tried. It's confusing at first, wanting to try so hard for this, but she manages to shrug off that violent grip for long enough to get him to stay with her while she's on hold. It's stupid, and she knows he's worrying about Ann and Mark the entire time, but she still asks the lady at the National Parks Service to keep her on hold. For whatever reason she obliges and April's met with the terrible music on the other end, but it feels right.

It also feels right to suck on Andy's neck, but that was completely beyond her otherwise stoic reasoning. It feels almost good that she's done something nice for a new friend of hers – a new friend that she finds oddly cool and was definitely okay – and April finds she likes that new sensation. There's something there that makes her feel like she's done something good for once, and Andy makes her feel worthwhile for a brief second. It's invigorating, like a drug, and she craves it.

Then later that night as she thinks she's done something right for her friend, or whatever he was supposed to be, the weight of the situation hits her. And it hits hard, because Andy couldn't have cared less that it was April he was using to make Ann jealous. That wasn't the point to him – the point was to make Ann jealous and whoever he used in the process was irrelevant. She feels used for a moment, but she remembers that it was her idea, and April can feel them take hold of her again – those hands. But this time they're a welcome sensation, like she's returning to a friendlier territory that she recognizes where she won't have to think about how little she mattered that day in the grand scheme of things.

She doesn't have to think about it because she  _knows_.

_You're not worth it._

 

* * *

 

April doesn't even remember the meaning of that sentence when Andy's at her birthday party. She knows it's dumb, childish, and naïve that she can only think that maybe he'll be okay with her now that she's twenty-one, but it's still there. And she knows that, just like every other birthday party, she just wants to go drink alone and slum around her house in sweatpants but there's something different. Then, in high school through the few years afterwards, she had no reason to do anything else and she never knew anything that constituted a real reason.

And she knows that she's been taught to think of a man as anything but a reason to do something, but Andy makes her feel  _worth_ in her life.

And it's reaffirmed when she decides that she'll go to the stupid club and wear that absurd dress that her mother's been trying to force on her for more than a year now. It's so fucking incredible how silly it is to her, that moment when she has to tell Andy to look away out of obligation to herself. Then, he listens to her and it feels so strange not seeing his face lit up like that, so she breaks her resolve to distance herself from him.

But then, then there's Ann.

_Incredible Ann, whose only opponent is Just April, and it's so easy isn't it?_

Clearly he's picking her. It's the only thing that makes sense, but when he talks to her later it's almost like that scene from earlier wasn't anything. And when he walks away she feels disgusted with herself that she let the most annoying human being on the planet get anywhere near her. And then she realizes that's not why she's horrified with herself – she can't deal with the fact that she had a chance, and she threw it away. It was almost like she wasn't as good as Andy seemed to think, almost like she wasn't worth it to him and he was just avoiding unnecessary conflict. She wanted to believe otherwise, but nothing else made sense to her, and she feels those hands again and they're clapping and she can tell she's made a mistake but they're always right. They've always been right about her, and of course they'd be right now, so she can only sit at home in bed and think how selfish and stupid she was being for thinking she had found something – someone – that gave her something else in life.

 

* * *

 

April doesn't know what happened, she can barely even think, but she hears "Andy" and "hospital" and that's all it takes. The speed at which she's taken over by action is disarming – she can't drive there fast enough, and she's out of breath by the time she finds him and it's just a broken arm but it still seems like so much more to her. It's all been so stupid, thinking that Andy had anything but good intentions, and she just listens to him and remembers his excited face from just before when she admitted that she liked him.

It almost felt real, just like his lips, and for a second she was convinced that maybe – just maybe, in that singular moment – she could be worth it. That maybe, in spite of crawling doubt all over her body, she was good enough. April, barely visible April, could be worth it to someone, and someone could be Andy. Her breath is gone so fast after that moment, and she makes a weird noise in the back of her throat when she thinks about it, that she can barely keep her eyes on him. It's like maybe he'll vanish after that second, but he doesn't.

Then he tells her that Ann kissed him, and the breath is gone again but it's different. It's different, but she feels something all too familiar.

It makes too much sense for her to doubt, like it's the most obvious thing that she's ever heard.

_Of course she did, and of course you're telling me this now._

But April's struggling in that moment to breathe, because she thought that for once she could feel okay about herself, and now she has to know that she was just a second choice. She was an  _option_  and nothing more to Andy, and it's crippling to hear him say it. April knows she's right – when has she ever been wrong about this – and now it feels like everything that she's told herself for years is coming back to spit in her face.

So she runs, and she has to leave him despite everything she hears from him in that room, and it hurts. It hurts so badly, so intensely, that she can't even begin to describe any relatable feeling. She just doesn't have the litmus for this sort of disappointment – disappointment in herself for believing for more than a moment that she could be worth it. April –  _just_ April – couldn't best Ann, the perfection that she hated. It kept reminding her, like scratching fingertips at the base of her skull, that she was a tool in Andy's quest for Ann and she was just an objective on his path to winning back someone who he deemed worthy.

Someone that wasn't April.

_Not you, you're not worth it._

 

* * *

 

There's a distinct change inside of April over the next few days after the incident. Something feels wrong with those hands, and they're not so much clawing and grasping as they're pushing and urging her on, and all April can feel is a strange desire to get back at him. It doesn't make any sense if she thinks about it longer than a moment, but it feels so right – there's a catharsis there – when she tells Andy with a smug look on her face about the guy that she picked up at the airport just before the flight back to Pawnee. She kept the illusion up when he was looking, and she did like his recharged intent, but when she went home things changed.

April feels sick to the stomach when she looks in the mirror, and wonders if this is what her worth is – if she can only get disappointment and betrayal right. In the mirror she sees the same physical appearance of the girl, but she still can't bear to look at this "April." She'd rather be  _just_ April than this incarnation, but she can't let Andy in again. He had done so much good, only to tear it all down in an instant, and she can't let him do that again or she just might break.

So she continues her strange show until even her tool is falling for Andy… and she can't blame him; he's pretty great.

 _He_ is  _pretty great._

But that doesn't stop her from receding, from taking everything she's collectively known and learned about him and sorting it all out as she sees fit. It's too clear, too obvious to her, that he has some ulterior motive in his crusade to get her to understand – to get her to realize he cares, in his own words – and it still feels like, somewhere, there's going to be some clause just after. It's going to say, loud and clear, Ann and April's not sure she can handle it again.

 

* * *

 

These thoughts, all of them, come flooding back to April one night while she lies on the folded out futon next to Andy. She can't fall asleep, partly because of the crazy heat of Burly's house and partly because of those thoughts, so she stays there on her small portion of the sofa staring away at nothing. It's eating away at her, even though she's partially naked underneath the covers and she can feel Andy next to her and she's known his enthusiasm firsthand, and she can't get those memories out of her head.

_You're not worth it._

That's all she could hear in her mind, like she wasn't actually alive and awake in that moment. In the next she would wake up and find herself alone in her bed at her parents' house, and things would be right again. They would  _make sense_.

"Andy," she whispers in the dark without turning around. "Andy, wake up."

She hopes that she's being loud enough, because she can barely make the sounds without feeling a cruel desire to find her clothes and leave him for a more sensible and  _real_ night by herself. It's sort of a blessing when she hears his breathing interrupt and a few grunts.

"Huh, wha-?" he starts and then there's a little movement from him but she still refuses to turn around.

Staring into the rest of the black room, she pictures what it would be like to not see these pitched shadows in every corner of every thought like a constant reminder. April wondered if she'd find something that brushed them away like cobwebs and showed light through, all the way through, and left her mind unclouded by doubt and worry.

"Hey, can we talk?" she asks him, still not moving.

"Sure, what's up?" his voice changes and she knows he's switching into listening mode.

"I'm… not sure," the words catch in her throat and she just wants them to come out. "I mean, I don't know I guess."

"Oh, okay," Andy says like it's the most natural thing and not a complete nonsequitur.

"Sorry for waking you up," she mumbles, already thinking about whether her keys were in her jeans or not. "Didn't really think about it."

"'s fine," he yawns.

Then, before she can figure out her plan of escape, he moves closer to her and his arm catches around her waist. His hand searches for hers and she lets him have it, and his grip feels odd – like there's something more there. Maybe it was just the hour, and she figured it was probably the lack of sleep, but the way he squeezed felt like more than she was expecting. It felt  _needy_ , his touch felt so wanting, and it catches her off guard.

"Andy," she says a little louder and she turns around this time.

"Yeah," he answers with closed eyes.

"Do you want me to be more like Ann?" she asks quietly.

His eyes open immediately and she wonders if she found something there, but his face switches from surprise to bewilderment almost instantly.

"No…?" he asks cautiously, his head moving backward slightly on the pillow. "Why would I?"

"Do you…" she starts and April knows she has to get the words out now or they'll never come, "y'know, if you had to do it over again would you still be here? Would you make the same mistakes and… end up with me?"

"Totally," he answers without a beat's difference between the two of them.

Something about the tone of his answer, like how he ignored that she called herself a mistake and didn't seem to think about it longer than the speed of the signal to his brain, felt right. Maybe it was because after that he sat up and she followed him, and maybe it was because he pulled her closer to him and April's instinct was to bury herself in his body heat. It was definitely something to do with the way his hand stroked her back and the time they stayed like that in the middle of the night. Something about  _that_ was oddly calming, and it felt comfortable despite the sweltering summer air, so she reveled in that emotion for a while before reconsidering what this all was.

Maybe it was because she felt worth it in those milliseconds of time between her question and his answer.


	37. (This) World Spins Madly On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is from a drabble/prompt/request thing that an anon sent to me on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) last night. I just had to write this because the idea was kind of cool, especially because it allowed me to characterize the Ludgate-Dwyer baby a little more than usual. So, uhh, yeah!
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Title is from the Weepies song of the same name.

In five days, it's only five days, and things might get to go back to normal. Five days and April knows they'll finally be free from the tyranny of a child in their house. Yeah, Roberta barely spent any time there in the last few years as it was, but she was happy that things would go back to how she remembered them being. It was still amazing to her that a kid had made it through so much of her life under their care – and that word was so qualified for April and Andy – but all told she was glad things happened the way did. Sure, every few weeks April would find herself terrified that maybe they'd slip up again when they were definitely not ready at all for number two. There were even a couple times she thought that Roberta herself was far too much for the two of them to deal with.

Then she remembered that it wasn't just her kid, and somehow Andy proved to be more than ready to be the other half of the agreement. Even when she couldn't rely on the "just gave birth" excuse – which was admittedly a really damn good excuse – and only wanted to get sleep, Andy still took up a few extra duties. After a while, she started looking at it like a competition to see who could do the most nights in a row taking of their daughter when she was that young – that way it felt more like old times, like years they'd not forgotten but somehow had fallen to the wayside in their shambling path to maturing. Or, at least, the closest to maturity and being adults they could be.

That's probably why she's thinking so hard about Roberta leaving for college.

She can't remember the last time that they've been April and Andy. Not that the Ludgate-Dwyer household wasn't awesome, since the years of indoctrination meant their family dinners consisted of pizza rolls and the three of them lounging in the living room all night while watching whatever new obsession Roberta had. Vacations were the easiest thing ever, since she never wanted to go anywhere and April was happy to stay at home and not go to work for a week or two.

At the same time she hears the door open. Roberta shouts that she's home and April wonders just how much she's going to miss how familiar that's been.

 

* * *

 

"Mom, what are you doing?"

It's seven in the morning, and neither of them are ever up this early without extreme incentives, but April's been up for an hour folding clothes. Folding and refolding them, messing them up intentionally just so she can keep doing it over and over again. They're all of the things that are getting packed away for the first semester and April's not sure why but she feels a little extra comfort in that silly repetition.

"Laundry," she answers sarcastically, because she's raised her daughter to be smarter than that.

"Clearly," Roberta answers back, hopping up on the washer and pointing to the piles of clothes. "But, y'know, I did all of that last night."

"I know, but you did it wrong," April returns.

Neither of them says anything after that for a little while. Between the two of them, Andy's going to be the one that's overly emotional when they're finally done with an incredible extended move-in day, but April also knows that if she lets the clothes sit in their baskets and the bags, all of those stupid hampers they bought as well, then Roberta's one step closer to being away. April still remembers the first time she got her daughter to insult someone, pointing at Ben and calling him a nerd with an oblivious smile on her face, and she remembers what it was like laughing with her the first time she really understood what she was calling the older man.

She knows she's creasing her head in thought because when she does that Roberta mimics her and makes a much more exaggerated fish-face, lips pouty and focusing on her mom. It escalates like it always does, this stupid little game, with the two of them increasing the absurd grimaces they can contort their faces in. In the end April wins this time, because Roberta starts laughing when she flares her nostrils and juts her jaw out in an attempt at stretching her face out. Also she's pretty sure that her daughter accidentally got whiff of the cobwebs and dust in the corner where she was sitting, back against the wall, but it counts.

"That totally doesn't count," Roberta immediately says after recovering, still swatting away at the dust. "That's interference."

"Does too," April returns childishly, sticking her tongue out and going back to sorting and re-sorting the same clothes.

She knows that this is the part where April gets to discover new things in her own life and rediscover things she thought were long gone in her marriage. Then again, that feels empty in comparison to watching her daughter kicking her feet off the washer and creating a massive clanging every few seconds. Then she feels Roberta jump off of the machine and leave her a one-armed hug, slinging her arm over the back of April's neck for a second, before walking back to her room. It's almost enough to make her break down right there.

 

* * *

 

April knows how familiar the symptoms are, and hell if she's going to admit that in a way she hopes she's right, but for now she's got more important things to worry about. There are more important things to worry about than getting warning signs a handful of weeks in, and she knows it, but it still infuriates her that they're coming in at all. People are sending papers to her, there's so many of these stupid reports that need done, and she can't help but wonder why on Earth she had ever accepted the promotion to director. True, she was technically the first female Parks director in Pawnee – Ron never gave Leslie the chance – but it was days like this that made her want to drive a fiery hot poker into her skull.

Endless requests, complaints, and then even one phone call of all things, and April had enough. She told her assistant to watch over things for the rest of the day as she was taking it off. They've known her to take abrupt vacation days before, and it was well within her right to take advantage of those accumulated hours, so it doesn't come as much of a surprise.

Something about that little park behind what used to be Ann's lair comforts her on days like this. Maybe it's because amidst a sea of paperwork and seemingly menial tasks, seeing something she's worked so hard for – she and Leslie, to be fair – alive and well makes things a little calmer. A very young couple is walking a dog around in circles all the way across the park when she sits down on a bench, and she watches them cover every corner with the dog slowly trotting alongside them.

She watches them make mostly incoherent paths on the grass until they leave to continue their walk elsewhere. Then April's left alone on the lot, watching blades of grass move a little in the wind and wondering why no one's been cutting it to regulation – and God that thought makes part of her want to vomit immediately – but she likes it. It's quiet, kind of since Pawnee's not gotten much better in that department over the years, and she feels a little calmer.

So she goes down to the pharmacy and buys one of those stupidly named kits and stares at it for a solid minute before she tucks it away in her purse and leaves without paying for it. She knows the blind spots of the cameras too well – she stole the exact same brand from the exact same store eighteen years and some change prior.

 

* * *

 

"You're-"

"Pregnant," she finishes it, staring at him.

"That's awesome," he says perhaps a little too loudly.

It took so long for Andy to get it out of her that night. At dinner, the two of them sitting in bed and picking at the assortment of egg rolls and spiced chicken, she knew she was being distant and Andy was way too perceptive of that to just let it go. Roberta was out for the night, hanging out with her friends that she wasn't going to get to see for who knows how long, so they stayed in and kept to themselves in the bedroom. It was mostly because April was going to begin to hate walking past Roberta's room – her former room – and making her way down the hall to their bedroom, and she just wanted to stay in solitude for that last night.

"Yeah, I guess," she lets out a sigh and sits back against the pillow at the head of the bed.

"I mean, we don't have to have the kid…" he says slowly, and she just gives him a small look that tells him that's not what she's thinking at all.

She couldn't stop thinking about what she had previously assumed life would be like for them now – going back to those early years of sitting around the house naked or barely in anything, eating awful food out of whatever they could find, and sitting around making up insane scenarios and games to play. Most of them ended pretty much the same way, and neither of them were ever too unhappy about eventually falling into bed with a new set of characters in mind, but April thought she missed that.

Then she remembers what it was like being called "mommy" for the first time, and carrying Roberta on her back while her daughter played with her hair and laughed, and all of those little moments. Those games they made up over the years, the things that really made April reevaluate what she thought being a mother would feel like.

"Do you really want to do all of this," she motions with her hands around the bed and towards the rest of the house, "again?"

"Sure," he answers quickly.

In the years that have passed, all of the times April's watched him give everything he can for all three of them, April finds a different, unusual appreciation for Andy. Somehow his hair getting a little grey isn't gross and disgusting like she always thought it would be, and she's never been more turned on than when she comes home from work and this fifty-year old incarnation of her husband is still giving her looks like she's the only woman he's ever seen, so the second child's not really that surprising. In fact, April was kind of expecting it to happen earlier than this, but they really had been more careful about things than before the first pregnancy. In part it's kind of hilarious to them that Roberta always gives them a look, rolls her eyes back, and makes a choking noise whenever they're kissing for more than a brief moment.

So it's not that much of a surprise to April that they're having this conversation, only the timeline.

"I mean, you want more kids right?" she asks him plainly, poking a strangely shaped bit of chicken with her fork and making a face. "You always wanted a bunch of 'em."

"I guess, but do you?"

His question kind of catches her off guard for a second, because in some way she knows the answer to it already. April  _does_ but there's still something that makes her wonder if they can handle another baby, and then another toddler, and another teenager… and everything those changes meant. Also, they'd be  _really_ old parents and that felt weird to her.

"Yeah," she gets out after chewing on a ball of clumped up rice.

"Awesome."

That's really all she needs to hear from him.

 

* * *

 

Throughout the whole of the drive, Andy refuses to let Roberta take over. He's staring headlong at the road, barely tearing his eyes away for anything, and April's never seen him so focused on something in her life. There might have been a point in the early years where she remembers him being so adamant about his feelings, but watching him grip the steering wheel was completely different.

It was incredibly silent when they finished packing away the assortment of clothes, blankets, and everything else that April could manage to sneak into the car for the semester. Somehow, with April left to her thoughts and Roberta focused intently on her phone, it was even quieter in the car. Two hours of hearing the sounds of Indiana pass by, the occasional hum of something on the radio actually catching her ear, and then they were suddenly there and those dorms felt real. Moving everything into the car felt like it took an eternity, but on the way up – and meeting the people that she was forced to room with – the move was over before it had even started.

She could see it in Andy's eyes, and when he gave her a hug she was lifted off the ground – no mean feat considering that the girl had nearly reached his own height and wasn't as much a slouch as either of her parents – and April just gives her a sort of all-too-tight embrace. Then, when they're about to leave, she sticks her tongue out to Roberta who just sneers and pulls her nostrils up with her index and middle finger.

At least on the ride back they can talk, but they really don't. April just occasionally sighs and Andy's talking to himself about how he's so obviously not crying.


	38. For the World to See

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having a little fun with the anonymous request that made ch.36 happen, if fun is really the word you'd use. This is kind of a sequel to that one, taking place immediately afterwards. Anyways, remember that you can send prompts in as well to help this madness along, if you want, to my [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Title is the lyric immediately following the one from the same song as 36, because why not?

Or maybe it's because, in the morning, she's cold lying on that futon in the living room, exposed to the room despite the wealth of blankets heaped on her. Not because Andy's clearly moved from where he was the night before – somehow she ends up sleeping in more than he does half the time – or that she remembers everything she had thought that night before. It still feels right, somehow, despite what anything Andy could say and part of her wonders what would actually change if she left.

So she did.

Slipping out of the house wasn't that difficult, especially considering she had driven herself there in the first place. Driving back home, on the other hand, took a concerted effort – her hands clutching the steering wheel like it was the only thing she had in the world, and even at one point telling herself that she should just go back to Andy. But something was telling her otherwise, like she couldn't really believe everything that had happened and that she'd finally see them for what they were – lies she'd constructed. Then she remembers the way he answered her the previous night, how quickly and ardently he expressed it, and she hates what she's done already. Part of her hoped that she could stop thinking about it when she slumped into her own bed, but then it didn't really go away and she starts thinking what Andy's reaction when he figures out that she's gone will be.

And she hates herself for it. She purposefully ignores his calls and texts because how can she explain any of this to him, and she regrets it. Hate changes shape, and the only thing April can do is call it loathing. A familiar thing, loathing, and it hurts her to admit how  _welcome_ it feels but she can't ignore it either.

 

* * *

 

The next day at work, she can ignore Andy. She makes sure to go in a little earlier than usual, almost on time even, but he's still there. Somehow, at this hour, he's there polishing his own shoe. He's shining a sneaker, but she's not going to tell him how stupid that looks because she just wants to get out from there.

"Oh, hey!" he shouts from the seat when she's nearly taken the corner just ahead. "Hey, April!"

She stuffs her hands in the pockets of her jacket and tries to make it clear she's ignoring him. Why, or to what end, she doesn't really know anymore. But he seems to get the idea, and she's left alone for the rest of the walk.

She's pretty successful after that, she thinks. He's missing from the stand when she heads out for lunch, thankfully (she thinks for a moment why she says thankfully to herself, comes up short, and leaves that thought alone). At the same time she heads back to the Parks department and finds a pile of little paper tulips on her desk. Some of them are clearly hand-folded, judging by the horrible little petals jutting out in absurd directions, but she picks one up and finds herself staring into it. There's at least a dozen of them there, and she knows who did it instantly, but all April can do is twist one in her hand and smile, not realizing until the muscles in her face move that she's trying her damndest not to cry. It's so stupid, and she's completely above ever crying, but she still can't help it.

"You okay?" a voice asks from behind her, and Leslie's standing with her shoulder against the threshold of her office.

April doesn't turn around, hands still sifting through the paper flowers. Among them was a little piece of paper with a handwritten note on it. A lot of the words are misspelled and the handwriting's got no straight flow to it, some of the writing shooting upward as words finished only to come back to where Andy thought the base of the letters should be but couldn't stick to. Wiping at her face with the sleeve of her jacket, she knows she's smiling like an idiot at the little message but she can't help it.

_We can talk if you want, if not that's okay. Here's a bunch of flowers. The real ones were too expensive (sorry) so I made a bunch of these from the post-its on your desk._

It was true, her stash of post-it notes was totally gone. Turning around, April stood there playing with the pink one that she'd grabbed while she sat against her desk and looked Leslie in the eye. Hopefully it wasn't as clear to the older woman that she's crying, but April knows how perceptive she can be so that's basically thrown out the window immediately.

"You wanna talk about it?" Leslie walks forward and picks up the little note and chuckles softly. "Come on."

April makes a sound like she doesn't want to, but Leslie still grabs her arm and pulls her into the office. A few seconds they sit there, April continuing that low rumbling noise and Leslie sitting there uncomfortably, until April starts to leave and the other woman gives her a look. It's never stopped her before, but something keeps her there this time.

"So, why are there a bunch of badly folded paper flowers on your desk?" she asks up front.

"Because Andy's stupid," April retorts. "And he thinks it's romantic or something to make me have to clean that all up."

It doesn't really seem to matter that, despite everything she's just said, April's still holding onto that little flower. Every once and a while, between exchanges like that or when neither of them are saying anything, April looks down at the thing and smiles again. It's enough to make her sick just how much she's been  _smiling_ at this stupid little thing, but then again it made her think of Andy and thinking of Andy sent chills along her body and made her want to keep smiling.

"Sure," Leslie nods, like April was making any sense at all.

"Why do you care, anyways?"

It's a potent question, and it could mean a lot for how this conversation goes, but April's sincerely caught off guard by Leslie's sudden investment in this situation.

"What, I'm not allowed to care about my friends' relationship now?" she shrugs, and April likes the way that the word 'friends' rolls around in the air.

"I thought Ann was your friend?" April asks, clutching the tulip a little harder when she said her name. "Y'know, Ann – the beast in the pit."

"For the last time April, she doesn't live  _in_ the pit," Leslie closes her eyes and shakes her head before continuing.

"Semantics," April returns.

"Anyways, just because I'm your boss doesn't mean I can't also be your friend," the other woman starts, "and I thought that we were. Friends, I mean, because I consider you my friend."

"You say friend a lot," April mutters, but she does let a smirk escape and Leslie gives her a wide grin in response.

"Hey," another voice interrupts them, and  _she's_ there.

April's face falls immediately. It doesn't take much, especially when it comes to Ann, for that to happen. The moment's lost in that one second.

"Oh, Ann," Leslie shakes her head and glances at April quickly before turning back to her friend. "I definitely did not forget about today, so just wait outside for a second please."

Ann smiles at them and walks away, not bothering to say anything to April. It's good too, because April's too busy sneering at her as the nurse leaves Leslie's office. Without realizing it, her hands had balled up, and when she looks down to the flower again it's all crinkled and ruined from the squeeze. It actually makes her laugh, how silly the thing looks with one petal jutting out the wrong way while the rest of the body sat crushed in on one side, but then she suddenly gets mad at Ann for ruining it. This was obviously her fault, and April can't help thinking it. Leslie takes one look at April, the shrunken flower, and back out to Ann.

"Oh," she nods.

Leslie looks like she just figured out the missing piece to make the puzzle make some sort of sense.

"Oh," April mimics, fully smashing the flower between her hands until it was completely flat.

"April, look at your desk," Leslie points out through the office.

"Looking," she answers, watching one of the bundles of paper roll around on her desk. "I just see a bunch of dumb flowers."

"Yeah, that's all I see," Leslie stands up and presses her shirt down by the hem at her waist. "What do you see?"

She pats April on the shoulder awkwardly, and for a second April looks at her with a confused look but Leslie doesn't give her much to go off of other than those few words.

So April sits there, staring at the mess on her desk from inside the office, wondering what Andy was thinking of all of this. She could only guess how confused he was, or maybe even a little disappointed, but April still doesn't know how to handle the situation no matter how clear Andy's feelings were looking at his art project strewn across her workspace.

Opening up her hand, April looks at the little flower she's crushed before standing up to toss the thing out. There was nothing saving that one, so she was going to have to deal with only having ten or so of the other ones. Just as she walks out, letting the flattened paper fall into the trashcan by her desk, she notices someone else in the department.

Of course – what incredible fucking timing, she thinks – it's Andy standing in front of the permits counter and he watches her crumple up the remaining vestige of the paper. He scratches back of his head, and then he makes a weird noise that sounds like it was supposed to be masquerading as a laugh, before he walks out without saying a word to her. April looks down in the bin to see the lonely little flower, and she finds herself walking quickly out to try and find him. Luckily, he's just sitting on one of the benches outside of the department looking down at the floor. Sitting down next to him, April takes a second to figure out how to explain that.

"That was… sweet," she finally gets out, and the word stings on her tongue when it's used this positively. "I mean, I liked them."

Andy's head perks up and he looks at her. April responds by nodding her head and he smiles, leaning back on the bench like something was just removed from his shoulders.

"Do you wanna talk? I mean, because I wrote that. On the little-"

"Note, yeah," April nods and her face starts to feel warmer than usual, and she doesn't know what to do with her hands now that they feel suddenly cold and alone without his. "Sorry about yesterday. This kinda isn't fair to you, or something."

"It's fine. I mean, I'm okay with it. Or… no, I'm just sorta okay with it – but, like, only if you're okay." he answers, but he's doing that weird staring thing he does sometimes and she can't take her eyes off his. "You okay?"

She really considers that question when he asks it. All April's known about Andy up to this point is that he's awesome – whether that meant he was way funnier than anyone in the building, or that he was willing to accompany her on some of the more stupid pranks, or that he was sitting there looking at her like he was worried – but this is sort of different. So she answers truthfully.

"Not really."

 

* * *

 

They sit on that bench for a little while, the two of them so close but still apart, and then a little while changes to an hour. Andy's arm finds its way along her back, and somehow that feels a little better. Then an hour slips slowly into several hours, and April's head has been on his against his chest for so long that she's grown way too accustomed to the smell of him. People walk by, some of them just staring at the two of them and a few of them asking why neither of them are doing anything, but neither of them can really seem to work up the effort to care.

No words are really said between them, and April's okay with that. It should be uncomfortable, being stuck in the same position on the hard bench seats, but it doesn't stop either of them. As hours melt away into way too long, and it's getting cold and quiet in there because no one's actually still in City Hall, April finally stands up.

"Come on," she tugs on his hand, pulling him up with her. "Let's go, this place sucks."

Before she leaves April digs into her jacket pocket and pulls out one of the small paper flowers that she'd taken from her desk. She looks at it, then to Andy, and gives him a brief smirk before putting it back in her pocket. They leave through one of the emergency exits, and the whole way to Andy's house – and then for a few more hours, staying awake in bed afterwards – he doesn't let go of her hand.


	39. Shoes and Nails

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short day today! I have something that I need to go to in twenty minutes as I'm writing this, and it's kinda super important so yeah, but I was kind of fumbling for the idea today since I have plans for my current queue of requests. Then I remembered the little line I snuck in ages ago (literally from one of the first few chapters) about a prank involving Jerry's shoes and some creative fixture placement.
> 
> Enjoy!

It didn't take much – a spilled cup of coffee aimed expertly, a suggestion to change his socks, and now April was standing with Jerry's shoes in her hand in front of Andy. She gave him a mischievous grin and he returned it with a small curl of his lips and a short laugh. Turning back around, they looked around for the perfect spot to hang them when they found the doors leading into the cafeteria. He was twirling a hammer in his hand and for a second she had to change their position so that when – not if – the ball-peen went flying she wasn't in the direct path of it. Figuring out what to do with them had been pretty easy. It didn't even take as long as usual to come up with.

"We could throw 'em out," Andy suggested.

"Too easy," April remarked, making a face when she mistakenly held the old man's shoes too close to her face. "Besides, other people need to know what I have to deal with every day."

"Then," Andy's face lit up, and April arched an eyebrow ever so slightly in concern, "we bring the smell to them."

"Yeah?" she asked, cocking her head a little. "How do we do that?"

Andy sat there for a second contemplating the options. Meanwhile, April looked at the wretched argyle pattern insoles and shook her head. Looking around the department offices, she stopped when she hovered over the door to one Ron Swanson's office. Something clicked, and she didn't know why it was only coming to her now, leading to her digging up a hammer from some maintenance closet along with a few nails. She wasn't going to question why they were there, since this was too perfect to pass up. When she told Andy her plan, he just raised his hand for a high-five.

At some point these pranks should really get old, April thought. For some reason though, it's still kind of hilarious sitting at her desk and trying to maintain the cool, flat composure as Jerry looked around his desk in his bare feet. He was holding a pair of spare socks in one hand while he pushed aside things on his desk and opened drawers in his attempt to look for the missing shoes. While he was occupying himself with that, Andy was sitting at the little table in the center of the conjoining room with his fist in his mouth to stop the laughter.

She figured it would take him a few hours, or a call from someone much higher up, to get his shoes down from above the doors leading into the employee café.

Andy followed when she stood and left, and he couldn't hold it in any longer. At first it was a small laugh that started to pick up pace and volume, April rolling her lips and trying to hold back as best she could, before he covered his mouth and made a few huffing noises into his hand.

"Shh," she said, barely able to finish without chuckling.

"Oh man," Andy kept looking back to watch Jerry every few seconds, "how long d'you think it's gonna take him?"

"Jerry? Could take all day," April moved over to follow his gaze into the room.

She walked over and pushed herself against Andy's side, staring inside. Jerry's face was bright red, tinged with both fury and frustration, but he still walked around in circles around his desk searching for the shoes. Sadly, that wasn't going to prove very successful considering they were on the other side of the building.

"Good call on that one," he remarked, turning around to face her as they both sat there huddled in front of the double doors. "I never woulda thought of that."

"Thanks," she realized how quiet she was being only just as she was figuring how close they were.

And, for a split second, she caught his eyes focusing on her lips so intently that she had to step back. She had to hold her smile back in the same way as before, trying to remain focused on his eyes while they stood apart. If it wasn't for the already uncomfortable situation, the silence and Andy's insistence on attempting to say something would have made it much, much worse. Eventually he finally found a few words that strung together into something resembling a thought.

"Oh, yeah," he mumbled, motioning towards the end of the hallway and jabbing his hands out in indistinct motions. "I have, that… y'know, that thing. I gotta go to, uh, there."

"Sure," she nodded and continued plainly. "Everyone knows about the thing over there by the bathrooms."

He laughed, but then he took a second to look where he was pointing to check and see if they were actually bathrooms. Turning back around to face her, his face was suddenly serious and he opened his mouth to say something but, before he could get a word out, Andy turned to walk hurriedly down the opposite end of the hallway. If she wasn't confused by the situation as a whole, his posture while briskly half-running would have been pretty funny to watch – hands stock-still by his sides and eyes focused on something perpetually ahead of him. Instead, April was left with a half-formed sentence about to come out and a tinge of disappointment.

Feeling her hands twist the hem of her shirt a little too tightly, and a grimace forming on her face, April walked back through the doors and told Jerry he should try the cafeteria. This prank was a whole lot less fun by herself for some reason.


	40. Reflections (It's...)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so fucking sappy, I tell you what. I'm sure some of you will walk away with a few extra dental bills but I hope it hasn't come off as petulant as it feels. Whatever, just have fun with it please. 
> 
> As for some serious talk, I'm currently revising the schedule for this collection and will putting updates on my [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com). So if you wanna keep in touch if anything strange happens tomorrow post-wise, then follow me or just check in.
> 
>  **note #2** : the parenthesised and bracketed bits are from my own tendency to "listen" to characters I'm writing as I write them. For clarity, parentheses are Andy's thoughts and brackets are April's.

It's watching her from a distance, not caring what others think of it as long as she's okay with it, and then content with just being around. It's hearing her laugh at something stupid he's done, and he knows how much of an idiot he makes himself out to be, or when he speaks and knows the words are beyond stupid but maybe she'll smirk or chuckle at them. It beats in his chest, something burying itself so deep in him it almost hurts, and the thrumming of it makes breathing hard; sitting still a nightmare; his understanding of who he is melting away in its presence.

And now, he thinks maybe they can grow a little with those new roots. Just a little different, and it's not even real change… just a little growth as  _them_. He's never been made happier than when that's answered with a resounding:

"Sure."

It's standing there, watching her from that short distance, and the overwhelming realization as she gives him that grin that yells back – I'm not sure of what we're doing, but hell if I'm not gonna try – and his lungs squeal in an attempt to find air that's suddenly lost. It's hearing her say that she wants to spend the rest of her life –  _the rest of her entire life_ – with him ( _with me?_ ) and not really comprehending what that much time actually means, but it doesn't matter. She says yes, he's not going to answer with anything else either, and they've made it official.

It's wondering if April actually even cares about his band, like it isn't one of the most important things in his life – so important, but barely even a weed in comparison to them; to her – and wondering what that means. It's staring her in the eyes when she walks up and has a look on her face – his recently sold guitar, now stolen back for him – and it's something so different than what he's used to. It's that look, that way her eyes kind of light up when he talks about her ( _it's the truth, though_ ) as if she's the most important thing in the world – and, God, he's never going to say anything but – and the way they spend that night so close, so long after sex, and he doesn't want to let go of her.

It's being scared that, even now, April can't trust him. Even if it means something as simple as her workday, or as important as withholding her trust in dreams and secrets, he wants to know. He doesn't  _have_ to know, of course ( _just because she's married doesn't mean she's not still April, right?_ ) but it kinda hurts when she keeps things away from him like this. It's listening to her finally tell you that she does have a dream, and she's considering it but she's afraid what he has to say on the matter – and, shit, she's never been dumber in that moment.

It's supporting her in that because he can, at least, do that for her. It's figuring out why, and what's making that happen.

It's love.

 

* * *

 

She's sure he's one of the simplest people on the planet. From his lack of finesse, poise, to his candor, sometimes verging on insensitivity, all of it seems bewildering. He's one of the few people that honestly confuse her so that's probably where it comes from at first.

It's being a little concerned at the glances that fall away into looks when she turns to catch him, and then when they linger into stares. At some point she'll have to tell him to stop, but she can never really figure out the right time in the middle of a conversation or any of their more prolonged afternoons together in City Hall. It's probably wondering when genuine curiosity stopped being the primary motivator and just talking to him took its place. It's definitely when she catches herself biting her lip and staring at him, holding the cup of coffee so near that it's close to bursting over the lid.

It's the jealousy, the fury, and disappointment – and that last one so much more than the others – when she's in Venezuela. All two-hundred and forty-two voice mails [ _I definitely didn't keep those for a month_ ] that she patently refused to listen to – or, so she says [ _...because I totally didn't listen to any of them_ ] because she feels a sad giddiness in hearing them every day: at first excited, then a dark realization that she was supposed to be mad at him – they were definitely part of it.

( _Seriously, I have no idea why you're not answering me. If you're mad, tell me, because it's super boring without you)_

It's that one, that voice mail. It's wanting to respond.

It's at first thinking how easy it would be to run away from this all and not get married to him, but then walking and her feet carrying her without another thought when she sees his face. It's that face, watching his breath catch for longer than was probably healthy for his brain, and glancing over to Leslie that makes it seem so real [ _that's not what I was thinking_ ].

It's seeing him so beaten down by the rejection that she has to help him. Officer Andy Dwyer is gone from his dreams, and watching fall apart in that, makes her heart give a twist [ _wow… that's so stupid, it's not even remotely correct_ ]. It's missing the vibrancy, all the insanity in the house at four in the morning, and hating seeing him so far removed from himself. It's trying to help, finding every avenue from Tom to Ben's charity thing, just so she can see him happy again. Without him like that, she's the positive one and that's just not how they're supposed to work.

It's knowing that he's better than that, and wanting to show him just how much better he can be, that makes her get off her usually apathetic ass and help him. It's figuring out why, and what's making her do it.

It's love.

 

* * *

 

"I love you," he says, his eyes never leaving hers even when she has to look away.

"Oh my God, you can stop saying it already," April answers because the way his voice sort of croaked that out felt more important than anything else.

"I love you," he puts his hands on her waist and still refuses to break his glare.

"Andy," she complains, and if something's actually falling down her cheek she's sure as shit never divulging that information. "Dude, stop."

"I love you," he nearly growls, pulling her closer to him and that stupid jersey.

Maybe it's because everything that's happened that night is hitting her all at once but April feels incredibly vulnerable and open in that moment. With the freely falling tears, the short dress, and how close they were she can't think of any other reasons. It's definitely just some sort of stupid emotional high, she reminds herself.

"I love you too," she finally gets out, and Andy's lips shift ever so slightly but she can't get over that ridiculous feeling that those words actually mean something coming out of her mouth.

And maybe it's because he's heard it countless times now, but Andy's confused why those words still floor him. He chalks it up to the feeling of April pushing her head into his chest as they dance slowly – alone, way after the wedding when everyone's left, because she refuses to let anyone but him see her like that – to the Sinatra rendition of that song he purposefully dedicated to her. That felt so long ago, and Andy's so happy that despite the run they've had it's all come back to this.

It's just that – it's just love. Simple as, and simply put, it's everything they want.

It's them.


	41. A Brief Rendezvous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very brief, fluffy nonsense missing moment thing. Double post day because I think Spare all its own is not great for some people and they just want another injection of that sweet, sweet April/Andy fun!
> 
> (trust me I do too, that's why I wrote this!)
> 
> Anyways, enjoy.

April doesn't know what to expect of Andy's brothers. There was an equally likely chance that they were all geniuses, post-graduate alums from some crazy exclusive universities, as there was that they were all the simplest people in the world. She just had no gradient for the Dwyer family yet, so when he marched all five of them in front of her she could only wait for them to say something - naturally, none of them seemed at all excited to be there.

"So, these are my brothers," Andy explains, holding his hands out in a wide gesture.

"Hey," they all collectively say.

"Hey," April responds.

They sit like that for a moment, with Andy looking excited at April and back to them, before he eventually leaps out between them and clears his throat. He starts to say something then stops, holding his hands out and shaking his head. Eventually April shoves him with her hip and gets him to say whatever was on his mind.

"So, this is April," he says and April shakes her head. "She's gonna be my wife in like five minutes."

"Not if I run away," she mumbles into his shoulder when she puts her head on it.

"What?" one of the taller brothers speaks up, raising an eyebrow at Andy's laughter in response to something like that.

"Oh, she's not serious," Andy chuckles, waving him off but when he looks down to April she gives him a look that says otherwise. "You're not, right?"

"I'll do it just so we can get married again," she says quietly, not breaking her eyes off of his. "And then I'll do it again, and again, and we can get married, like, fifty times."

"Aww," Andy gives her a small kiss on the lips and turns back around to his brothers. "So, you're all my best men."

He walks over to them and walks down the row, ticking off names – Mikey, Stevie, Danny, and so on until April realizes how clever Andy's parents must have been with nicknames – before turning them around and pushing them over to the living room turned altar. He walks back over to April, putting his arm around her shoulder again.

"You weren't serious right?" he asks, suddenly serious and concerned. "About the Julia Roberts stuff?"

"Super serious," she looks up to him again. "I wanna marry you tonight, divorce you, then marry you again."

"Cool," he nods before leaning down for what was intended to be another brief kiss.

"Then divorce you  _again_ ," she starts, and soon Andy's leading her to the refreshments table while she punctuates every word with another kiss or movement of her hands, "and then marry you all over again and again… and again."

Her breaths were starting to get ragged as Andy pushed her onto the table, just feet away from so many people. He had apparently gotten past his fear of seeing her before the actual wedding, because now he was pulling himself back and taking in the sight of her sitting there in that short dress before peeling off his own jacket.

When he walks closer to her again, her legs naturally opening for him and wrapping around his waist, he makes a low grumbling, grunting sound in the back of his throat that makes April's whole body vibrate in response. Sadly, just as his mouth connects with her collarbone and makes its way down her chest there's a soft sound of someone clearing their throat.

"Guys," and it's Mikey, April thinks, a cup in his hand and eyes averted from them. "Let's, um, let's not do this until  _after_ the wedding, okay?"

"Dude, go away," Andy says after taking his mouth aggravatingly farther off her body. "Seriously uncool."

"Okay man, whatever you say," he turns around as he finishes his thought," just thought you'd wanna know that some blonde chick is talking about setting something on fire just to stop the wedding."

April turns her head up, watching through the doorway that separated the two rooms to see Leslie pacing through the windows. Andy likewise moved back and helped April off of the table, looking back to her when he couldn't clearly make out what was going on outside.

"Babe?" he asks, a real worry there in his voice.

"I'll go talk to her," she sighs loudly, as if playing mad will get her something from Andy.

"Love ya," he adds, smiling that wide grin that's so infectious to her. "Can't wait to get married to you."

"Me either," she returns, along with a shy smile. "Love you too."

He makes a sort of weird wheezing noise and she knows that it's super unattractive and kind of girly but she can't help laughing a little at it. And not even at him, because that's too easy, but rather that thought – that they were actually getting married that night. But she likes that feeling too, and it's really fucking scary and exciting all at once, so she walks outside and pulls Leslie inside to have a word with her to have as subtle a conversation as possible with her – if she mentioned that she knows Leslie's actively trying to sabotage them who knows what would happen.

Thankfully, things go off  _spectacularly_.


	42. Way Too Much Sweat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From an anonymous request on tumblr, wondering (just like I did) what actually would have set Andy on a road to getting fit - other than Chris Pratt being super devoted to a role. My immediate response led to this one-shot. Remember that you too can be a totally awesome person, if you have any idea or request or anything to say to me at all really, and talk to me on [my tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Either way, have fun.

She doesn't know when it's actually started, but April definitely notices on the third night when he rejects yet another beer from her. Usually when they stayed in – which was happening more and more, not that she minded – nights devolved into drunken rants between the two of them but that was beginning to be more and more one-sided. The previous two nights were mostly her staring sullenly at him while he played a game on the new Xbox, with occasional comments until he realized where she was going with them, and then she basically blacked out after the sex.

"Andy," she said as she sat down next to him on the sofa, "what's up with the no beer? I told you already, you can't drink like Ron. It's too-"

"Expensive," he muttered, not taking his eyes off of the TV or his hands from the controller. "I know babe, I'm just… ah, I'm not feelin' it tonight."

She sat back into the cushion on the couch, staring at the mouth of the bottle before sitting forward again. The abrupt change in her posture made Andy turn around to look at her, and she just grimaced in response. He paused the game and put the controller on the floor, turning his whole body to face her on the sofa.

"That's stupid," she finally said after a few seconds of awkward staring.

"Well, I just don't want to," he was getting visibly sweaty and his hands were starting to shake.

"Babe, you love to drink and you love to drink beer," she moved her hands up for emphasis and brought them back down with a sad thud on her thighs. "Beer is probably your third favorite thing ever."

"Yeah, that's true, but I don't… want to. I think… I guess," his voice trembled and now he was reaching for his shirt. "I don't… it's totally fine. I'm totally fine. Don't drink beer, Andy."

He slapped himself on the face and returned to taking the sweater off, sighing and rolling his back like he was covered in sweat. Somehow, in the cold Pawnee night, he  _was_ starting to sweat quite a lot.

"What are you doing?" she deadpanned, watching the specimen of a man she was married to rub his naked back with the sweater he was just wearing.

"Everything's all gross and sweaty," he complained, stretching his neck and continuing with the shirt.

She sat back and watched him for a few more seconds. He wasn't grossly overweight, or even incredibly unhealthy looking like the rest of the stupid town, but he definitely wasn't a symbol of fitness. It had never bothered April because, to be honest, if he looked like Chris she might think she was fucking a diving board. Plus, when winter nights got as bad as they did in the Midwest, Andy being able to literally smother her entire body was pretty cool.

Not that she'd ever admit she liked to cuddle.

"Andy, what's the big secret?" she asked, breaking her stare when he stood up to air out his armpits by swirling his arms in circles.

"Secret, who said secret? I didn't," he grunted, keeping his arms up at shoulder level and pivoting them while talking.

"There's a you-shaped stain on the couch right now, Andy," she pointed to the cushion where there was, indeed, a familiar wet spot where Andy had just been. "You have to tell me, especially if it makes you this gross."

He just shook his head in response and continued his ridiculous exercise.

"If you don't tell me," she started, unsure what her leverage was supposed to be now that he was actively avoiding beer, "then we won't have sex for… like, a week."

"What?" he stopped immediately, his hands dropping to his side, but then he smirked and motioned to his oddly sweaty, shirtless chest. "Whatever, I know you can't resist this."

"That's what you think," she returned, taking a deep breath and ignoring the fact that he was actually right.

Andy only contorted his face in a mixture of confusion and struggle, starting a few awkward sentences and pacing around, before he stopped in front of her and gave her a serious look. Or, at least, he thought that's what it was but to April it looked like constipation or just lots of squinting.

"Okay," he said too loudly, making April jump back a little. "You know how I've been going out to lunch with Chris the past week? Well, we have lunch at first and he makes me eat this super gross healthy stuff, but then we go running after."

The look on his face meant that he thought this was some big secret, especially considering how disgusting he looked at that moment, but April wasn't sure where that was supposed to come in. Still, she had to play along.

"So, what, you wanna become Chris and live to be a thousand?" she asked with more than a hint of anger in her voice.

Andy wasn't supposed to be fit or lean, and he definitely wasn't supposed to  _want_ to be any of those things. So hearing that he actually volunteered to go running with Chris – and likely getting just a fraction of work done in the same time that Chris easily outpaced him – struck an odd nerve for April.

"Well, I just wanted to see if I could keep up for the police test thing for next year," he explained, sitting back down and keeping his shirt wrapped around his neck like a towel. "At first, but… I dunno, then Chris told me that if I keep eating the way I do I could die from it or something."

"You could die walking down the street tomorrow," she sat down next to him and gave him a once-over, trying to figure out what he was getting at. "So why bother not eating and drinking stuff you actually like?"

"Because I want us to get, like, super old together," he looked up and had a sincere, almost shy half-smile on his face. "I know it's stupid and sappy and-"

"So you're doing all of this," she motioned towards him and lifted the beer still in her hand up, "you're not drinking beer, you're exercising a little bit, and you're eating a little healthier because of us?"

"Yeah," he chuckled, nodding like it was more obvious than anything else he was saying.

"Do you actually want to get, like, super fit like Chris?" her voice wavered a little.

"He said I didn't have to go that far and, to be honest, that guy's a friggin' machine," he laughed, unrolling the shirt that he'd taken off and sniffing it before tossing it on the floor. "But, yeah, I think it'd be cool to try. Is it… y'know, cool with you?"

She hesitated to answer – she wasn't sure if she'd like Andy's body more toned and less pudgy, fluffy teddy bear but she wasn't going to suddenly stop loving him or wanting him. Maybe at the end she'd decide that she liked him one way or the other – either a little less extra baggage and maybe a little more muscle or Andy with a minor drinking problem and a lot of fluff – but it was worth trying. The one thing she was sure of, however, was that seeing Andy this motivated to do something because he thought it would benefit the both of them was kind of eye-opening.

April wouldn't admit it freely, or sober at all to be honest, but the idea of Andy running around in circles because he didn't want to have a major heart attack in his thirties was all right by her.

"Totally," she nodded. "I mean, if you get too thin I can just divorce you."

"Huh?"

"And then date you again when you lose all that gross muscle and get back to being the super soft Andy," she pulled him up and, despite the amount of sweat still on his body, wrapped her arms around his waist.

"You're the best," he whispered before putting his arm behind her knees and picking her up. "And to celebrate my awesome wife, we're totally gonna do it."

April just shook her head and accepted that she wasn't going to bed as drunk as usual. All that meant, at least, was that it would last a little longer and she was okay with that – and, thinking on it, if he kept going with this fitness thing then  _maybe_ …


	43. Count Every Beautiful Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically related to 36 and 38. Extension of 3x14 based on an anonymous ask I got on tumblr this morning, related to me losing my mind and writing way too much about my pet theory that April is depressed/struggles with some of these issues in the timeline of the show. Either way, thanks Brianna for sparking this thought in my brain! 
> 
> I love talking about this sort of stuff, or really at all, so you can come gab at me over on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com)if you have requests, feedback, or just generally wanna shoot the shit. Enjoy!
> 
> Title is a lyric from Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" and, likewise, the song at the end is a NMH joint.

After everyone had left the courtyard, the band and the few bystanders she'd managed to convince to sit there for a few minutes before bailing, the only two left there were April and Andy. He was sitting down on one of the benches, playing his guitar idly while looking up to her and intermittently laughing softly. For some reason she couldn't keep her eyes on him for very long without feeling another smile creeping over her face, and so she tried to keep away from him and pace.

Stealing his guitar back wasn't that hard. Sewage Joe was such an easy mark – one call to his extension, another horribly obvious phony accent, and off he went out to the parking lot to look for the Amazonian blonde in the parking lot. She had thrown a Craigslist ad out, improvising some way to get him out of his office, and his response of "which one" just made her skin crawl.

Now she was pacing in the courtyard, trying to figure out why she had even gone that far. But, it was Andy – and he was supposed to be the happy one. That was how they worked, at this point, and she didn't know how she'd deal with him if he ever fell into that weird self-esteem hole he did that day ever again. Also, having an argument with him sucked. Mostly because she ended up yelling at him for being insensitive and that was so far from the truth it hurt, but for whatever reason she had pulled that card out.

And then he sold his guitar and claimed to quit music forever. Now, though, he was sitting in the courtyard and strumming bland progressions and humming nonsense along to them. Giving in to his looks, she walked over to him and pushed his guitar away out of his lap, sliding around his side on the strap, and sat herself down where it was just before.

"Sorry about all that drama-for-drama stuff," she whispered, "I just thought you'd… sorta pay attention to stuff when I said I liked it."

"I do – I did – but… I dunno, that stuff makes me really sad and then," he sighed and looked around awkwardly before looking back up to her, "and it kinda makes me think you get super sad listening to it and, I dunno, that makes me feel weird about it."

April nodded in response, biting the side of her cheek. There were things she was comfortable sharing with Andy, and the tumultuous start to their relationship was founded on too little self-esteem and that familiar voice telling her how she couldn't be worth it. He knew that – she definitely gave him plenty to work with on multiple occasions of her getting to in her own head and blocking him out – and it made sense, to an extent, that he thought that music was making her fall back into those thoughts.

"Andy, it's not that," she pushed herself closer to him and looked away from him out to the courtyard. "I mean yeah that band's kinda depressing and stuff, but it makes me feel like I'm not the only dealing with that stuff, y'know?"

"Not really," he chuckled.

"Okay," she shook her head, "but you get why they're important to me right?"

"I guess, I just figured that Mouserat was important to you too," he swayed a little but still left April's arm slung over his shoulder while he moved around.

"They totally are, because it makes you happy," April turned back to meet his eyes, "and you're not supposed to be the sad one, okay?"

"Yeah, cool," he smiled and took to moving his hand up the small of her back.

"But, really, that band is super important to me," she explained, and Andy's hand stopped when affronted with this still serious conversation. "You know how… y'know, I'm still a little-"

"Sure," he nodded and pushed his hand into hers.

April instinctively smiled at his interruption, looking down at their hands before turning back to face him. In some ways she thought that Andy was just an insanely childish person and super fun to be around, and that was enough for her to forget some of the things she always told herself. He was escapism in human form and unknowingly kept her from returning to those dark corners, and she loved that about him. Still, every once and a while something like this came from him – something more thoughtful than he had any right to produce – and it made every inch of her skin feel suddenly alive again.

She loved that feeling of being around him when that happened, and she loved that he could intuit these things.

"Thanks," she finally said.

"Maybe we can go home and I'll listen to a song or something," he suggested, shrugging noncommittally.

"Wow, thanks Andy," she muttered with more than a touch of sarcasm.

"I know, I'm the best husband ever," he said quietly without taking his eyes off of her.

"Yeah, you're pretty great," she admitted.

"And you're the best wife in the world," he added, "and I'm super lucky and I love you and you're the best person I've ever known and-"

"Love ya too," she interrupted with as much emphasis she could in that quiet space.

If she didn't break his concentration in the middle of that sentence she didn't know how she would react. He had tried to shower her with praise before and all that usually ended up with was her getting mad at him and smacking him, but in times like this – alone, quiet, intimate – she usually let them wash over her. It made her feel, on some level, a little more normal. Maybe it was because of the look in his eyes, and that intensity they had when he said things like that, that made her heart beat a little too fast and her hands sweat way more than usual.

She leaned down to give him a short kiss, and for all intents and purposes it should have been, but Andy had moved his hand from the neck of the guitar to the back of her neck. In a second, what was supposed to be brief turned into a deeper kiss with April readjusting herself so that she was facing him on his lap, her hands stroking his chin and moving around his neck. They broke off, and in the middle of the courtyard April could see the glint of desire in his eyes. However, they  _were_ in the middle of a municipal government building and that could, possibly, cause some minor issues.

"Hey, let's bail," she stood up and Andy immediately jumped up after her.

"Totally," he grunted, following her and barely remembering that he had his guitar still slung over his neck. "Let's go home."

"Yeah, that sounds pretty cool," she whispers to him.

It's a lot quieter, and slower, when they get home. Hands touch in a softer way, searching for each other, and at one point she swears that Andy turned on music. It doesn't dawn on her what the music is until afterwards, because her brain's forgetting basically everything in the rest of the room that isn't Andy or her. Lying back in bed, she laughs to herself when the drums and noise kick in at the beginning of "Holland, 1945."


	44. Andy's Belated Halloween

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spawned from Recall Vote and the (paraphrased) line "Andy and I always used to dress up as demons and egg Larry's house."
> 
> Leaving it as the fluffy Halloween treat it's supposed to be since I doubt I'll even be near my PC tomorrow. Have fun guys, and happy Halloween!

"So, I haven't asked yet – but how's Andy?" Leslie asked April suddenly when she walked out of her office and past April's desk.

"Ugh," she groaned in response.

Throughout the day, April aggressively hung up on people instead of just never answering the calls and only gave Larry a cold stare when he asked how Andy was. That was the problem – Andy. All he did when she got home was lay on the couch, snoring, or in bed – still, snoring – and no matter what she did he was out for the whole night. Occasionally she'd be woken up by him at around two in the morning and he'd still be kicking around when she actually got up.

It was  _annoying_.

"I thought you missed him?" Leslie inquired a little quieter than before.

"I did, and I  _do_ ," she explained, waving a pen with her right hand. "He sleeps all the time and I haven't figured out a way to get him to stay up all day."

"Well, you could…" Leslie grinned a little, and April turned her nose up to the suggestive nodding that followed. " _Y'know_."

"You don't think I tried that?" she groaned.

That was her first idea, after all, and it had gone disastrously. It went so poorly that at one point April had actually gotten on top of him and his response was a loud, drawn-out snore. Pretty swift mood-killer, as it turned out, and it only made her incensed – and a little defeated, if she had to be truthful – that he could conk out like that.

"Maybe too much information," Leslie held her hand up while April gave a suggestive twirl of her wrist to illustrate her point. "Sorry I asked."

"Whatever," April shrugged her off, refusing to say anything else on the matter.

Instead she stared at her work and tried to focus on it. That only lasted a fraction of a second before she realized how stupid that was, given that Leslie was in full motion to make her last thirty days as councilwoman as effective as possible. April thought that, if they wanted to, the entire Parks department could likely leave for a month and there would be zero change in how the place was run. Leslie Knope was a force in her own right, but motivated like this she could carry the weight of an entire government on her back if she wanted – so April just wallowed in her own anger at Andy for having the gall to get jet-lagged.

 

* * *

 

On the drive home, and once she got there, April gave up on the idea of trying to get Andy into some sort of normal sleep schedule that night. Now she was just caught in a struggle between being incredibly mad at him and being disappointed in herself that it was this hard to keep him focused for a few extra hours at night. Inside, he was drooling on one of the couch cushions with his head buried in the armrest. Fighting an urge to smack him until he awoke for a few minutes, bleary-eyed and confused before drifting back off to sleep, April sat in front of his sprawled out legs. Turning the TV on, she held down on the little volume button of the remote until she could barely hear herself think over the drawl of Perd Hapley.

Looking over to him, hoping for a reaction, all she got was a snort and Andy shifting his head a little in response. Turning the TV back off she stood up, making a disgruntled rumbling noise all the way, and walked back to the bedroom to lie down and read something to hope that it would take her mind off things.

 

* * *

 

 

"Babe," she thought she heard Andy saying. "Babe, wake up…"

She figured that it was some kind of weird dream, maybe a little too lucid for her liking but that depended on where the dream ended up, so she just ignored the words.

"Hey, I got a surprise for you," she heard him whisper to her, suddenly really close.

She could almost feel his breath on her neck, which was starting to make her wonder how creepy this dream was going to get. April rolled over in bed, moving the covers over her shoulder a bit more until she felt someone prodding her. Then it turned to shaking and she rolled back to face the assailant. In the dark she could make out that it was Andy, but she could also make out a faint outline of something stick out of his head.

"Wh-what are you doing?" she yawned, looking at her phone to see the  _3:23AM_ and shudder.

"Come on, get up," he started pushing her out of bed and she resisted, too comfortable with all of the warmth around her and the position she'd been lying in just before. "All right, I see how it's gonna be."

April felt his weight shift off of the bed and after the soft clunk of a light switch being clicked into position, the room was way too bright all of a sudden. Sitting up in bed, she threw her hand over her eyes and squinted to focus on Andy so she could figure out where exactly she was going to hit him.

"Really, man?" she complained, still squinting until she caught sight of Andy and she shook her head. "What are you wearing?"

The something sticking off of his head was a little plastic headband with two small triangles jutting from the top. April couldn't tell if it was just poorly made or he had constructed it himself, since the little paper triangles looked like they were attached by masking tape. It was colored red and he was also wearing his favorite red sweatshirt and a pair of gym shorts – of course, also red. Ridiculous didn't begin to describe the get-up he had going, especially with the all-too excited look in his eyes.

"Get up, it's a  _surprise_ ," he emphasized, and she wondered when he could surprise her by being up at eight in the afternoon.

Grumbling, she stood up and let him lead her by the hand outside of the bedroom. She had to suppress a smile when, in the hallway leading out, she saw a glowing red light as the only illumination there and a hanging plastic skeleton decoration. When they actually reached the living room, Champion was fast asleep in his bed with a small cap on his back and the room was indeed only covered in dark, sanguine light. The plastic skeleton was joined by a small wisp of what was supposed to be spider webs, likely old decorations they never used, draped over the couch.

"Oh cool, your surprise was to throw garbage around the house," she couldn't even attempt to hide her growing grin. "Thanks, hon, this is the best surprise ever."

"I figured since I wasn't here for real Halloween," he turned around and his lips shifted into a sly smile, "we could have our own and…"

"And it's the eighth," she laughed, "of December."

"Yeah, there wasn't that much stuff for me to get around for this," he looked around and scratched his chin, stopping on the plastic hanging and the mess of fibrous webs.

"Well, it's awesome," she let out, moving closer to him and hooking her arms around his waist.

"Wait," he raised his hand, finger pointing upward like he had an amazing revelation, "there's more."

April shook her head and had to bite the inside of her cheek not to laugh at him rummaging through a small brown bag for something. He stopped and made an excited noise sitting between a grunt and a chuckle. He jumped back up, holding an eerily similar headband to his own. In the other hand was a small orange shirt, proudly emblazoned with the Hooters logo, and the same pair of shorts he was wearing.

"Wow, I've always wanted one of these," she exclaimed sarcastically, holding the orange shirt in her hands and smiling. "You give the best presents, honey."

"It's not a present," he explained, taking the shirt back and putting the headband on the parting of her hair, stepping back a little. "It's a costume."

"Am I going as a white trash marathon runner?" she took the shorts and shirt, not breaking her inquisitive glare.

"Well… no, remember how we always used to egg Jerry's house?" he asked and April could see where this was going, and she had to look away or her actual happiness might show too blatantly. "I couldn't really get scary demon outfits, or really any costumes at all, so I had to, uh, criticize-"

"Improvise," she corrected.

"That," he pointed to her and laughed, "is why I married you. Babe, you're so smart."

She slipped into the shorts and shirt while he talked, and for a second she wondered if she should even bother with the "costume" he'd prepared. Then, when she looked in the mirror and saw his face at her ridiculous appearance she thought that things could have gone worse. Taking advantage of his likely fleeting awareness, she pressed herself into him – weird rustling of the fabrics of their shorts and all – and brought him down to her lips with more force than was probably necessary. Sadly, before she could really get a feel for how far this would go, he had broken off and told her they still had to go egg Jerry's house for it to be a real belated Halloween. The trouble was that his eyes were still locked on hers as she focused on how swollen his were from just that brief encounter.

Without another word, he grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the door. Thankfully April was able to convince him to at least let her put on shoes and a jacket – a weird maroon thing that she didn't even know was hers, just to keep up the bizarre shade matching that was happening there – before they left. Creeping up on the house this early in the morning wasn't that hard of a feat, and the eggs in Andy's car were less than fresh, so all in all it was a fairly easy job.

It wasn't quite as satisfying, though, as when they returned to Andy's car and her first instinct – to stop him from starting the car by hooking her leg over his and straddling him, face-to-face – was met with a loud rumbling grunt and the disposal of that stupid Hooters shirt.


	45. Aging Gracefully

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anonymous request for more middle-aged A/A! 
> 
> Interrelated to every other kid-fic I've written in that there's a daughter named Roberta. Somehow that stuck.

For about a week after she's gone, Roberta calls every day. At first she sounds excited, and April's trying to hold it together because no part of her is ready to admit she misses her daughter – someone that had been a bane to her independence for nearly two decades – and also because the calls start becoming more and more infrequent. Andy has much the same reaction, each day without a call just shrugging and trying not to look at his phone sadly.

So they did everything they thought they wanted to do while April was still capable of it.

Not that she'd be laid up, or at least less active, for another many months but Andy wasn't in any shape to be slowing down. They both missed when the three of them would be them and Champion, and then them and Roberta, but sitting up late and eating pizza while watching all of Andy's old reality show contestant videos was fun.

_Was_.

"Andy," she interrupted his laughter at the flying leap he took on the screen in front of them, "are we boring now?"

"Babe, we have pizza and I'm pretty sure we're gonna have sex after this," he pointed to the screen and another in the long line of embarrassing takes. "That sounds pretty awesome."

"We sound like old people," she turned to look at him, ignoring the irony of her words and his graying hair. "Well, you  _are_ old but all of that stuff is boring."

"Even the sex?" he asked, incredulous and grinning.

"Shut up," she bumped him with her shoulder, his arm remaining over hers, "you know what I meant."

He nodded, because he honestly had known but it was going to be hard to get jabs in when she went to term, and stood up. Turning the TV off, he faced her with his arms crossed like that was supposed to mean something to her. After a few more seconds the awkward staring, and eventual eyebrow wiggling, April just assumed they were skipping to the sex right away. That was fine by her, but then Andy took off sprinting for the utility room and she could only be afraid of where his mind was going.

"Andy?" she shouted after him when she heard a loud crash.

Then he came tumbling back to the living room. Under one arm was an inflatable pool and in the other was the video camera they had bought years ago when they were still freshly married. April thought she'd gotten rid of the thing, but apparently when she told Andy to do it all that had happened was he put it somewhere out of sight.

His cleaning skills were truly impeccable, though April couldn't be expected to do much better.

"Okay, so…" he started to walk towards the sliding doors in the back, "I got the pool and the camera."

"I feel like I should ask you what those are for," she squinted her eyes, trying to get her sarcasm across as best she could.

"Oh, duh, well we're gonna fill up the pool-"

"It's October," she reminded him, nodding towards the yard and the frosting grass.

"Okay, and it'll be even better because of that," he laughed her concern off, bobbing his head and somehow exhibiting that same childish energy that she fell in love with.

"Why's that, and why the hell do you still have that camera?" she made sure to tack on that final question, because she wondered if that SD card was still somewhere in the house and not burned like she asked.

"You think we're boring, right?" he nodded, still smiling.

"That's not what I-"

"So we're gonna audition for  _The Amazing Race_ ," he interrupted.

She looked him up and down – Andy had tried to get in shape at one point, and succeeded for about two years, but then the pregnancy had sapped all of his time to go to the gym and age wasn't helping his impressive figure – and laughed. It's not like she could do it either, but especially not with him in tow, and April had to pull herself back and wonder why the hell she was considering this at all.

Then, she looked in his eyes while he continued nodding vigorously, and thought: what the hell? What was the worst that could happen?

"Sure, why not," she shrugged and shook her head.

Andy responded with even louder laughing and opened the sliding door to go fill up the small kids' pool.

 

* * *

 

A little humming vibrated in the back pocket of Roberta's jeans, and when she swiped over to the incoming message she laughed. Looking back up, the professor gave her a harsh glare before he continued. Stepping outside, partially because she was probably going to lose it based on the title of file and that still – her mom and dad standing in the small inflatable pool that she used to play around in over the summers, clutching each other more out of heat retention than any desire to be near the other – she let it play.

They were shouting almost incoherently to each other, and Roberta could barely make out what the hell they were saying. She had to make up for that by watching them run around in circles around the pool, still talking but not saying anything she could understand.

She was right, and she didn't stop that horrible, ugly cackling until she got back to her dorm. Biology could wait, this was more important.

 

* * *

 

Then, one day a few weeks later, April gets an email and a phone call along with a letter that looks way too official to be getting anywhere near her. Somehow the schedule worked out perfectly, and even more bizarrely they were qualified, and April could finish the tapings – she knew those things weren't always live, and this confirmed it – before even really showing let alone being unable to compete.

When she went home, April told Andy and both of them started at each other more confused than they had ever been in each others' presence.

 

* * *

 

This time Roberta gets an email, and the subject line is so disturbing she thinks it's just another joke like when her mother said they'd be moving to their cabin in the woods full time. Thinking that she was actually serious when that happened, and was only swayed when they had a shouting match over it, she hurriedly clicked through to the email.

There, plain as day on the headline and when she started the embedded video, were her parents on the first episode of  _The Amazing Race_ as it entered its 47th season.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," she mumbled to herself.

"What?" her roommate piped up from her bed, giving her one of the myriad confused looks they shared.

All Roberta did was sigh and point to her laptop on the desk, afraid that she would fall asleep and wake up with this being a reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've never watched the amazing race in my life except for some reruns i might have caught at like 4am so meh


	46. April and Chris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I forgot to mention this yesterday, but if you're confused why there are suddenly fewer chapters and haven't noticed yet, I moved the Cut and Spare series out to separate stories. 
> 
> This is taken from an anonymous request for extending the depression!April idea into a one-shot revolving around her and helping Chris when he was having some issues. Not _precisely_ April/Andy, but I hope that's fine.

April could see some of the mannerisms form in Chris before he even knew what was happening, and she knew immediately what was going on. She knew all too well what a practiced veil of that inner turmoil looked like, and further she knew that his suddenly ended relationship with Jerry's daughter was only the catalyst for something much bigger. It always seemed like things started simply, with something apparently minute, when she knew just how massive and important those  _small_ things could be.

It's why, for a week, she reminds him that they're going to see a movie that weekend. Them being, namely Andy, Chris, and her. She knows he'll decline at the last minute - it's what she'd do - but she has to make an effort. It's why, when earlier in the day he doesn't seem like he's aware they have plans, she stops by his office before leaving to go home.

"Hey Chris," she says calmly when she enters the City Manager's office. "You ready?"

"April Ludgate, movie night with the Ludgate-Dwyers sounds phenomenal," he points to her half-heartedly, and April tries her best to keep a smile. "I don't think I can go, though. I have some work I need to finish up. You and Andy will have an  _amazing_ time, I'm sure."

"C'mon," she pleads, unsure why she still cares until she remembers.

She remembers and sees that fake smile - that feigned nonchalance and the way he pushes her away. April doesn't really like Chris all that much: he's too happy, too chipper, and he keeps trying to make her do work. Then again, she doesn't think it'll be very cool if he remains this down on himself or where that could lead. He might deadlift himself into the grave if he kept spiraling.

"I'm flattered that you'd think to ask me," he nods, sitting on his desk and crossing his arms, "but there are some obvious code violations down by that waste dump on Main, so I really have to look at those."

"Oh wow, that sounds so exciting," April groans, looking around before shaking her head. "Look, I think you need to go out and- and you need to hang out with us."

"Really?" Chris looks surprised, tilting his head.

"Ugh, yes," she tries to hold back the scowl but it's too natural a response. "I mean, yes... c'mon you'll have fun. And you can walk Champion after, if you want."

"Champion? The world's  _greatest_ dog?" Chris smiles widely again, his eyes lighting up instantly. "Except for the three legs-"

"Yeah, yeah, but-"

"He is  _literally_ the greatest dog with three legs there has ever been," Chris interrupts, accenting every syllable with harsh pokes of his fingers in the air, "and that there ever will be."

"Sure," April agrees, nodding slowly.

They both quiet, April standing against the wall and Chris still smiling from his desk. She might say she doesn't like him, but that one brief moment of watching him light up again - returning to the usual Chris - made her feel like somewhere she had done something right. As much as she hated that feeling, if it meant that he wouldn't make her days horrible by forcing her to worry about him then April could deal with it. April hated doing something right if it meant work - this, this was different. Right meant she could help him.

"Y'know," April moves over to sit on the desk beside him as she speaks, "if you're... feeling down or whatever, you just need to find something."

"Oh, I never feel down," he replies, shaking his head, "I have exercise, an incredibly carefully structured diet, and myself to make me happy."

"Sure, I bet all of those are very satisfying right now," she answers knowingly, watching his mouth purse thoughtfully. "I mean, whatever it is that's got you in a... if you need to talk to someone-"

"I've never talked to a 'professional' and I don't think I need to, April," he interrupts, his face stony in its determination.

"Maybe that's the problem," she turns her head to give him eye contact. "I found Andy, and he always listens to me when I have... when I have the same problems, so - it doesn't have to be a relationship or whatever. That's dumb, anyways. Just talk about it with someone."

Chris looks like he's ready to say something, his eyebrows bunching up like he's just figured something out, but April stands up and leaves before he gets the chance to. April never talked to anyone that could have helped her, or at least anyone that had a fancy piece of paper saying that they could help her, but if that's what Chris needs he should try it. Still, she knew he wasn't going to. In the early stages she never wanted to talk about it at all, and she figures he won't be much different from her.

When she's halfway out of City Hall she hears footsteps following her at a brisk pace. It's annoying to admit that she smiles at that noise, but its barely even a whisper of one so that's okay, and when Chris eventually shouts for her to wait up it gives her the time to straighten her demeanor out. After all, she does feel kind of all right later that night when Chris takes Champion out for a walk. 

It's almost like she did something right.


	47. Johnny Karate and How to Be Cool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous request from tumblr - "Roberta's [pre-school] classmates don't believe her when she says that Johnny Karate is her dad." Went a little farther than that and had a little fun.
> 
> There were a lot of kid-fic requests, guys. I think tomorrow will be yet another one, and I hope that's cool because it's super fun! Anyways, if you get any ideas for a prompt/request, have some feedback, or whatever else you can think of you can ask me on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask).

It's another Friday for the class in the Old Eagleton Preschool, Room 102A: a usual half-day with time set at the end of the day for something special. Roberta mostly likes her teacher, Miss Penny the seventy year old who talks like her fake Grandma, but she hates surprises like these. Sometimes they're fun, like pizza or when someone has a birthday and they all get cake, but then they sit and watch more of those stupid cartoons - the one her mom watches are so much cooler - before they leave.

That day, everyone sat down without cake  _or_ pizza. Or cupcakes, which were pretty much little cakes and Roberta doesn't get why they're called cupcakes but neither does her dad so that's okay. 

"Quiet down," Miss Penny says gruffly, her voice hoarser than usual. "Today we have a very, uh, special guest."

The door to the small room bursts open then, making the old woman pull back before a single guitar chord echoes out loudly. Music is her favorite part of the "lessons" they have, but it's all super boring in comparison to her dad's songs. Then she's even more confused because the person that walks in  _is_ her dad.

"This is-"

"The return of Johnny Karate!" her dad interrupts, and Roberta's smiling because she knows the song he's playing.

Except he doesn't sing the same words over it, and instead of being about how gross mommy is they're about doing well in school. Then he puts on weird sunglasses and she's even more confused. A lot of the kids around her are extremely excited, and some of them even look like they recognize him - how could they? - and she doesn't know what to do. Eventually he stops singing the song and sits on one of the comically tall stools, except he actually fits on them and his feet touch the ground.

"Miss Penny here," he waves to their teacher who groans, "tells me some of you are being mean to each other."

"No!" the offenders yell back, clearly singling themselves out. 

Roberta joins them, because James is the weirdest kid in all of Pawnee and everyone knows it. Why shouldn't she mess with his lunch? Johnny Karate - her dad, Roberta was still confused why he was called that because mommy always said 'Andy' to him - looks at her and his face falls a little before he goes back to smiling widely to the rest of them. She doesn't like how disappointed he looks.

"Well, I can tell you that," he stands up, playing a progression between his words, "that being mean isn't being cool."

And after that he breaks into a song about how cool people are nice to each other, but it's supposed to be about her stuffed penguin Cam and how he's the best stuffed animal ever. Her dad walks around and bops some of the offenders with his foot, lightly pushing them, while he sings about the mean people. When he gets to her he crouches down and sits cross-legged by the kids. She feels like he's about to yell at her but he keeps singing.

To be fair, James just didn't talk a lot. When he cried about his lunch Roberta felt bad, but she still didn't say anything. Instead she gave Miss Penny the bag of chips that she'd stolen from him. James stopped crying after the teacher gave him the bag, and Roberta felt a little better but other people kept teasing him. She wonders sometimes if he deserves it, so she just doesn't do anything to him anymore.

Now, she's sitting next to him and he's clapping along to her dad's song. When he's around music she likes him a little more. 

"All right, all right," the much older woman interrupts the song, "you kids can go home now. Your parents are waiting in the lobby."

"No," Roberta explains loudly in much the same way she usually interrupts the stupid things the woman says, "my daddy's here."

When she points to "Johnny Karate" everyone laughs, even James. Then her dad smiles and swings his guitar around his back on the strap, taking her hand and walking out of the room while the rest of the kids shout various things at them. Mostly "ooh's" and "ah's" of varying intensity, a few of them sounding jealous, and Miss Penny joining in with an annoyed grumbling. Outside, in the lobby where the other parents were, her dad stops and kneels in front of her.

"Who were you being mean to?" he asks, talking in that serious voice that's a lot less fun. 

"Nobody," she lies. 

"Bug, you're so bad at lying," he laughs, throwing in the nickname because he knows she hates it. 

Well, she hates it when other people hear it. When they're playing or at home, getting tucked in, then it's fine. Mom  _really_ likes the nickname too.

"Him," she points to James as he walks over to his mother. She never sees his dad.

"Okay."

Then they're walking over to the two of them despite Roberta's refusal at first. When they get over there, James's mom looks really tired and seems surprised when they walk over. 

"Hi!" her dad says excitedly, waving with one hand and keeping her hand safely in the other.

"Hello," the other woman says cautiously in return, but when James waves to Roberta and she makes a noise in response she smiles.

"And you must be James," he kneels down and looks to the small boy, who gives him a quizzical look. "Well, Roberta here just wanted to say something to you."

His mom starts making weird motions with her hands but Roberta doesn't really pay attention to those. She looks up to her dad instead because she knows what he means. Sorry? Why was she sorry? Oh, right - she made James cry.

Still, that was no reason for her to apologize. You're only supposed to apologize to your dad when you steal his guitar strings or your mom when you play with her phone a little too hard. Then her dad gives her that funny look - his eyebrows all pushed together and close to that disappointment again - so she sighs loudly.

"Sorry," she says quickly and James smiles.

Then his mom does something weird with her hands again, and it takes a while of watching the little boy stare at them before he starts doing similar things with his own in response. Roberta finds that she sits looking at her own hands, wondering what cool things they were talking about that made them both so happy, until the woman holding his hand returned to looking at her dad.

"Thank you, apology accepted," she smiles and breaks away to talk to her dad. 

Meanwhile the two of them are left alone, and Roberta tries to make some of the same shapes and figures with her hands. James tilts his head and then he's shaking his head, twisting his fingers in a circle. She doesn't understand that one.

"You're weird," she says slowly hoping that he'll understand her if she speaks really slow, but he doesn't say anything. He just keeps smiling. 

Then they leave and Roberta asks her dad why James doesn't talk. He says something about "death and mute" and just confuses her more, so she doesn't ask him again. Why wouldn't he just say what his mom did? She couldn't really remember when she heard him say anything last anyways. Maybe mom will be able to explain it better. She always explains things better than dad.


	48. Cut - A Decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite the fact that Cut isn't the name of the series this extends anymore, I'm not gonna start using another acronym when I don't have to. Y'all know what AU this stems from.
> 
> Either way, this was from an anonymous request from a while ago that I never got around to before. Changed it a little bit but the idea is hopefully still there!

April isn't really sure why the idea of a kid is suddenly in her mind, or why she's thinking about it. Really  _thinking_ about what it would be like, but she's barely out of school and things have been less than stable in her life for so long it's weird to even consider it. But she is. They still live in the matchbox of an apartment, and Andy's only getting some money from his gigs when he remembers to ask for his share from Burly, and Indianapolis is so much more expensive than she ever expected.

But she keeps thinking about what it might be like and she always comes to the same conclusion: if she had to struggle to find a reason to get out of bed every day, what the hell would she be doing to a child? She would ruin it, destroy its life, even if part of her thinks that Andy would be the greatest dad in the world.

So, despite everything that tells her to talk to him, she ignores the feeling and lets it build inside her.

It gets so bad that, one day, she's sitting alone above the bar in bed daydreaming about a little girl. A little girl that has Andy's vibrant eyes and his laugh. She'd be a beautiful child just because Andy couldn't possibly make an ugly baby, and maybe April would be able to be okay at raising her. Though that would mean she would be a mother - a child would be dependent on her in almost every single way, from pregnancy to birth and she'd have to be able to do that - and she couldn't just shirk that duty, ever. 

Now it just scares April to think about it. Somewhere she thinks Andy has the same thoughts, and he definitely thinks about marrying her because it's all he ever talks about anymore, and everything collectively frightens her. It feels real, it  _seems_ to be actually happening to her, but she's convinced this happiness will fade.

April just assumes that she'll be alone in a year, no matter what Andy says, and things will be better. They'll make more sense.

 

* * *

 

A year later, it's still frightening when she sees him standing in front of a bunch of friends and family while she walks in that absurd dress. April assumed that if she had made it to this point - every step of the way, from the proposal to the planning, figuring it all to be a dream - they would do it on a whim with no flair. There wouldn't be any flourish, but that would be okay because that would be  _them_ , but now she kind of likes the circumstances.

He's a little too fancy looking for her liking, but he never takes his eyes off of her and he's barely breathing. Even if she still wasn't comfortable in her skin, he tried - he tried his hardest, and it was all just to make her happy - and she loves him for it. It's why she doesn't run away, and they say a bunch of silly way-too-romantic things to each other calling them "vows," and it's why she's smiling through their kiss.

She marries Andy, knowing him for what feels like her entire life. Or, rather, the entirety of the life she didn't think she was going to live to see, a life that, in part, Andy had helped to keep safe. She likes that feeling, and likes the way her name fits against his just like the ring on her finger.

 

* * *

 

The thoughts come back one day in the middle of working on a commission. The client is a needy, whiny idiot that doesn't actually know what he wants, so April has to design and re-design and rework everything for him. 

"How's work, babe?" Andy asks her, sitting across from her at the table in the small Pawnee home.

He asks the question every day for what feels like hours on end, but she can't blame him. What else is he going to ask her? He might ask her why she always gets touchy when he mentions how cute a family of three looks walking around their son, but he doesn't. 

"This guy has no idea what he wants," she complains, tapping the trackpad way too hard, "one minute it's this font, the next he wants a different one and three new features, and now he's obsessed with the color scheme but has no clue about color theory." 

"That sucks," he says, not sure what else to provide. 

"Yes, it's like dealing with a child," she scoffs.

Andy leaves to go to practice with the band, everyone having moved back when he wanted to find a place for them to live. Of course, Pawnee was cheap and small and they already knew the whole town all too well so it was an easy call to just go back home. April, however, stops when she says that sentence and that's when it hits her again. She's dealt with people like that tens of times already that week and all of them were equally as annoying.

Still, she had never complained about them like she was now. Something else was there, and she knew it, and it made her absentmindedly itch her forearm despite nothing being there anymore. She had years of physical freedom, but every once and a while she would scratch without realizing it. Then Andy gives her a weird look and she laughs it off, because they both know that never happens. 

But then she thinks about where her life is - what her life is - and how quickly things are approaching something somewhat like normalcy. They were actually  _married_ and it was kind of weird, on top of that, that they had been through so much. Both of them knew how to handle arguments and how to talk to each other about their problems, and Andy doesn't know how observant he can be when he returns later.

"You wanna talk?" he asks her, sitting down next to her.

She's still working on the same site and ready to break down into furious rants over IM at the client. It's comforting that he asks her that, but when she turns to talk to him his face is clearly not concerned about her work. He's been around her far too long to just let something so massive on her shoulders go past him.

"About what?" she returns for no reason other than to temper the anger that might get unjustly redirected at him.

"I dunno, you just seemed kinda weird this morning," he folds his hands and looks down. "Dunno, a little too familiar y'know? Not about work, but it was like you had something else on your mind."

"Yeah," she admits, turning to him. 

"Yeah?" his voice is a little frightened and she understands why. 

He definitely has the right to be frightened, even if this time it's not as dire as this sort of conversation would have started out years ago. Now she was just considering the prospect of wanting to have a child. No big deal.

"Andy, d'you ever think about kids?" she offers immediately, not wanting to circle around the subject too long.

"You mean like...?" he trails off, uncertain.

"Yeah, like us. Y'know, having one," she explains to him. "I mean it's stupid and scary and neither of us will be able to do it. But you will, I mean. You'll be the best-"

"I totally wanna do that," he interrupts, his eyes so  _excited_ and they're screaming Andy to her.

"Yeah?" she says slowly, rubbing her arms again. 

"Listen to me, babe," he takes hold of her hands and stills them on her arms, "I don't know what you're thinking. You don't have to tell me, you know that, but if you think you're gonna be anything other than the most awesome mom ever then you're the dumbest person I've ever known."

"But I am thinking that," she pulls away from him, incensed a bit at how he assumed a few words would just make everything better. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean... y'know what I did mean that," he stops himself, chuckling. "April, you are so smart and somehow you managed to get us a house here and you're always right about so much. This, though, you're wrong about."

"Andy-"

"No, you - we've - been through so much crap," he's still holding onto her hands and April's starting to wonder what her real hesitations were, "and we always get through it. Our kid would be the coolest ever, and you'd be so good at being their mom."

"You'd be a super good dad," she mumbles, a small smile emerging on her lips. "I wanna see you teach our kid how to ride a bike, and how to play guitar-"

"And everything I do to make them goofy like me, you can make them really smart like you," his eyes are so intent on following hers that it forces April to meet his gaze. "And if it's a girl she'll be beautiful like you, and smart like you, and brave and awesome like you."

April can't really hide the smile anymore and she knows he's just trying to comfort her. It works though, but then when has it failed her? When has he failed her? She can't honestly think of a time, and it's what makes her nod her head and bite her lip in anticipation of his response. Naturally, he lifts her up and shouts like he was going to from the start. It's all she expects from him - that jubilant, carefree, and somehow supportive Andy he always had been - and he doesn't disappoint.


	49. Missing You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comes from an anonymous request when someone unloaded a bunch of them on me and I hate that I never got to it! Requested as "Daily Skype chats from Season 6." So here are a few of the ones that I came up with and thought were fun or cute.
> 
> Anyways, if you want to send in requests or anything you can always do that on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com).

"Can you just-"

"No," she interrupted Larry immediately.

"I just need-"

"No," again, she didn't let him finish.

"This is  _my_ computer-"

"Doesn't matter," she stopped him with a glare when he started walking behind her.

Whatever he was doing, and it didn't look important, April's computer was taken by IT because of something stupid about department-wide upgrades. She, however, wasn't going to be missing a Skype call. Sure she could use her phone, but then that wouldn't let her torment Larry. Where was the fun in that? That was the one thing she had nowadays at work - making fun of his life. His wife. His kids, all of it, it was all obviously stupid. April hated that Larry didn't have to go to a lonely home.

"All right, just tell Andy I said hello," he requested, smiling.

"Or I could tell him you fell into a river," she turned to look back at the monitor, "and you don't know how to swim."

"Actually, I was on my college-"

"Stop," she quickly chastised him. "Andy's picking up, I don't want him to have to hear your stupid voi- hey babe."

The low-framerate of Andy's video was filled with a big smile and a wave. The older man slumped his head and moved to the central table where April could ignore him from a better angle. At least there he would eat his sandwich and not make April even angrier at him. Why did he get to go home to his family and she didn't?

"Woah, the courtyard looks really different," Andy looked like he was scanning behind her. "Did they do something to it?"

"It's been a week, and no," she laughed, "stupid  _Larry_ wouldn't let me use his computer even though mine's not here." _  
_

She shouted his name and the older man nearly spit out his food. Walking out of the department altogether to eat elsewhere, April was content with her ability to scare him away. At least there was that, she noted. Turning back to Andy, she smiled and pretended that seeing him through a video chat wasn't making her lonelier and angrier by the second.

 

* * *

 

April's head was ringing from the moment she stepped out of City Hall to the second she stepped foot in her house. Pounding like a hammer against the back of her skull, coinciding nicely with every woeful task and all the  _paperwork_. The very word made her shudder. It was impossible - work was impossible - and she just wanted to get ten orders from the Chinese place they always called, drink as many of those hard lemonades she bought as she could as quickly as she could, and then pass out for at least three days. 

Thankfully she thought better and only got one order, but she did take the whole case of the sickly sweet drinks out, and sat in front of her laptop. Getting out of work early was nice, especially when Leslie became a whirlwind of energy and could handle everything herself, so she managed to get a call in at home for once.

When Andy answered he was looking around her and smiling.

"Got off early? Cool," even  _his_ voice was making her brains do somersaults in agony.

"Yeah, something like that," she grumbled, picking up the plastic fork and slamming it into the rice. "This sucks, Andy."

"I know, but I don't... it's only been a few weeks," he shrugged like he wanted to get away but simply couldn't, "and I think I might be able to do this."

April pulled out the soggy clump that she'd impaled with the fork and bit down. Chewing, she shook her head. Now she was being the obnoxious, clingy one and that simply couldn't stand. On the other hand she  _really_ needed to blow off steam from the earlier day.

"I know you can," she reassured, changing tactic and giving him a smile through the camera. "I know you can do it, babe."

"Thanks honey, you're the best," he returned the smile. "I gotta go to sleep though... early morning or something."

"That sounds awful," she grimaced.

"Yeah, right? It's pretty much the worst," he sighed. "Love you."

"Love you too," she got closer to the webcam instinctively. "I miss you."

"Yeah, me too," he replied before looking down and biting his cheek. "I'll talk to you later honey."

"Bye," she managed to get out before hanging up.

If she didn't hang up then he would have to, and that would mean the call never ending. Either because Andy forgot to hang up or, more likely, April kept him up for another two hours so she could just talk with him. That was one thing she missed, and it was weird to think about because that wasn't what April immediately thought of when it came to their relationship. But, as it turned out, without Andy around she didn't have much of a reason to speak at all.

Things were dull without him, and it was starting to get on her nerves.

 

* * *

 

There were only a few more weeks before Andy was back, but April was starting to lose her mind with the distance. Boring didn't even  _begin_ to describe the days without her favorite manchild, and talking to him through a webcam just wasn't the same. Where were the pillow forts? Where were the empty pizza boxes piling to the ceiling? 

April turned over in bed and looked at her phone - it was only two in the morning, so Andy would probably just be waking up. She couldn't get to sleep and it was getting irritating, like a big, sweaty chunk of her life was just pulled away. 

The spinning dots and continuous tone told her that Skype wasn't going to work, so she tried calling him.

"Yeah?" there was running water in the background and he sounded tired. 

"When's work?" she asked, ignoring her own yawns. 

"In an hour," he answered flatly. "I'm gonna take a real shower today, don't worry."

"Wish I could be there," she said with a small smile on her face. 

"Me too," he laughed. "What's up?"

"Can't get to sleep," she explained. "It kinda sucks not having you here, y'know."

"Oh, I know," she heard him close the bathroom door on the other end. "I know and, yeah, it sucks babe."

"Hey, you know... y'know it's been a while since I heard you sing," she muttered. 

There was a short moment of silence from Andy after she said that. All she could hear was the running shower and, to be honest, that might have put her to sleep if she focused on it instead. Eventually she heard him chuckle, and she tried not to think about how childish this was. Sleeping was the best time of the day, and here she was unable to even enjoy  _that_ , but then she heard him clear his throat.

"April," he said slowly like he was trying to catch her attention.

"Andy," she responded.

"Y'know what, whatever," he laughed again, loudly this time, "what do you want?"

"I don't care," she was still grinning to no one but at that quiet hour, dark, it was fine. "Though that dumb one you always sing in the shower..."

"Nothing on  _Vitalogy_ is dumb," he reprimanded her immediately, but was still laughing.

"Whatever dude, just sing for me," she mumbled, rolling her head in the pillow and putting the phone down next to her.

She couldn't remember the name of it, but she did like the way Andy sang it. The lyrics weren't particularly pleasant, and she wondered why he would usually sing this one, and why hearing his voice get a little weaker when the line about how bold she was comes up. April can't think much more about it - though she really wants to - because her eyes drooped closed and she fell asleep quickly after Andy had started. 


	50. Chocolate and Hot Glue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Missing moment from "Pawnee Rangers."

With the combined Goddess and Ranger troops, April was getting more and more frustrated at all the annoying little people that would ask her stupid questions. Somehow she had ended up taking over for Leslie when she left to go speak with Ron, and it was just about the grossest thing the woman had ever asked her to do. Except that she hadn't exactly asked.

It was more like forced conscription.

So, sitting down at the crafts table, she was forced to make sure no one hurt themselves with hot glue or scissors. How they were supposed to have fun without doing either of those things to each other was beyond April, but at least Andy seemed to be enjoying himself. He was helping a girl with her small candy badge while he worked on his own deformed sugary project.

"Do you think we should put the Skittles like a frame around this?" the girl, April knew she had no clue what her name was, asked him seriously.

"Or... you could just eat them," he suggested.

"Yeah, but wouldn't it look better if I didn't?" she returned, confused.

"Why would I want you to win?" he laughed, putting one of the small candies in his mouth. "That means you should probably do it, then."

The girl shook her head and gave Andy a strange look before going back to her little candy accessory. Meanwhile, Andy looked back at his own which to April just looked like a pile of different snacks thrown on top of each other. Maybe that was the point, she thought, but then again maybe Andy just had no idea what he was doing.

"What's that supposed to be?" April asked, interrupting Andy's clearly deep thought.

"Well, it was  _going_ to be a Starburst house until someone," he jerked his head towards a young boy who was busy laughing and eating candy, "ruined it so I gotta start over."

"Andy?" a quiet voice came from beside April.

Another girl had walked up to him - and suddenly April realized that Andy was the center of this whole thing with the kids either seated close to him or presenting different projects to him - and was showing him the little figure she had made. It had little wooden popsicle sticks for structure but was slowly getting molded over with chocolate and glued on pieces of other treats, even with a purple sash like the Goddesses' uniforms. The girl's station, April noticed, was further away from the rest of the kids by Ann.

April turned and watched Andy take the candy-person gingerly, appraising it.

"Dude, this looks awesome!" he exclaimed suddenly, smiling.

"It's not done yet, but I was gonna make Ms. Knope out of stuff," she said, looking everywhere but at Andy or April.

"I can see it," April added, nodding and pretending that she could see anything other than Dots for eyes and wanting to eat them.

"Yeah, it's already cool," Andy said, handing back the little candy Leslie, "can't wait to see what it looks like when it's done."

April turned and watched the girl head over to sit by Ann. While the latter busied herself grumbling and half paying attention to what was going on, the younger one was working at the caricature with intense focus. Andy had apparently given up on his own, looking around at the others. Every few minutes he would laugh when someone showed him theirs, telling them it looked great, and then staring at his own like he was disappointed. Eventually he gave up and walked away from his seat.

Initially it looked like he was simply walking around to look at everyone's work, he made it to the other side where April sat and pulled a chair up beside her.

"I don't know why you say this place sucks all the time," he chuckled.

"Everyone's having fun here," she sighed, "so of course it's dumb."

"Yeah, they get to do a bunch of awesome stuff. I wish I had been a Goddess this whole time," Andy turned before getting called over by someone.

Moments later, April saw Leslie walking towards the cabin. When she made it inside, everyone took turns having their projects checked on by her, leading to them going excitedly back to work. Leslie herself was busying herself preparing for the rest of the evening - dinner and then more hot chocolate than April had ever seen in one place - so April took her chance to talk with her.

It was strange that she felt so comfortable talking with Leslie about, well, anything. Not that she didn't like her at all, or love her, but that April felt instinctively that she was a confidant - someone with as much energy and passion as Leslie - was a surprise. Still, it was better than talking to Ann and Ron would either not even be here by this point or totally unwilling to listen to what she had to talk about.

"Hey," April called out when she had gotten close to the preparations.

"Oh, April, just in time," Leslie lit up and that worried April, "can you go get the rest of the cocoa from my car? It's just in the trunk."

"The rest?" she inquired, looking over at the two small baskets filled with packets.

"What, you think 12 pounds is enough?" Leslie laughed. "And there should be a few cans of whipped cream back there as well. I couldn't carry  _everything_ in."

"I carried myself and my own sleeping bag, so I don't know what you want from me," April shrugged, smiling. "But can I ask you something quick?"

"Sure," she replied, nodding. "Just don't forget that chocolate, or the cream, because it is vitally impor-"

"Leslie, stop," April pleaded. "I get it, I'll go in a second. I just wanted to ask... do you trust Andy with all these kids? Like, to watch them? I mean, Ann's here but she's weirdly focused on getting that badge."

"Yeah, I think Ann's having a really tough time. I'm thinking maybe-"

"Please stop talking about Ann," April interrupted.

"But you brought her up...? Anyways, yeah I guess I do," she shrugged. "I mean no one's gotten hurt. If anyone gets hurt I'd imagine it would be him, not them, and besides they love him."

April turned around and watched him judging three different projects at once. One of them was the girl that had sat by Ann, joined by a boy and another of the original Goddesses, and Andy was pointing fervently to the little Knope while saying something to the three of them. It was actually kind of sweet April noted before trying to wipe that thought away unsuccessfully. When April turned around Leslie's eyes were wide and she noticed that her own face was turned up in a smile. Hastily she returned to a bland, stoic face while Leslie nodded.

April shook her head, to which Leslie kept nodding.

"April, really?" Leslie asked, but it wasn't with that same level of incredulity that came out when they had a surprise wedding. "I mean-"

"No, not really," April grimaced, trying to push her excitement over a stray thought away. "What'd you think, that I was seriously considering kids? Jeez Leslie, I thought you were smarter than that. Way to disappoint me."

Walking away, and out of the cabin to go get the Diabetes-waiting-to-happen, Leslie gave her a disappointed look. April, meanwhile, had to seriously push that thought away. It was stupid anyways, but when she got back in she couldn't get the image of Andy helping all those stupid little kids with their pointless candy art out of her head. Mostly because he was  _still_ doing that - walking around, giving them compliments, and generally eating at least half of the extra candy that was sitting around. 

Then April looked over to Leslie who was on the brink of one of those contagious cackles. That thought would have to wait, however, because there was a loud shout and, turning around, April saw that Andy had put something in his mouth that had hot glue stuck to one end. Maybe that thought would have to wait quite a while, she figured, but it was definitely there and April could be okay with the possibility remaining stuck in her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want some honest feedback from those of you that still read this - do you want more angst, more fluff, more AU's, future fics, kid stuff, etc? I'm content writing whatever comes out, but it's hard for me to tell what connects and what doesn't. I write this for _you_! I want to know what you want.
> 
> Anyways, if you want to chime in, let me know by commenting or popping in on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask). Thank you!


	51. Cut - No Doubt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to those of you that submitted some of your favorite things you'd like to see more of! Anyone that either missed that or still wants to give me an idea what you want to see more of in this series can do so here on on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask). No idea what I'm going to do with that information, but it can help give me a push like today. Or it can just give me new ideas.
> 
> Fills a request for suspected cheating, so yeah. Yikes.

For the first time in as long as she can remember, April actually gets bored sitting in the apartment alone. Most of the time it was a beautiful time for sleep, more sleep, and the occasional dip into the weird, psychotic side of YouTube. She felt almost like she wanted to go out and do something, and that - first of all - was frightening, but it was also strange because she had been waiting all day for Andy to get home. 

Then, the next minute she sends him a text and calls Ben. Without any real planning they end up free for the night and it's suddenly a gross double date.

Somehow, against all her better judgment, the fact that Ben is in the same city as them, and that Leslie is actually definitely not the worst person ever, makes going out easier. Not that she hates going out at all, but it just being Andy and her is basically pointless. Any other time they could just make fun of people from the confines of the apartment without having to move or spend money, so that was always pretty great. He's still a massive nerd, and he always would be, but April doesn't hate him that much.

She got to know Leslie better too and, even if she was weirdly hyper-political and super energetic or the two things April hated most, they got along. Sometimes it felt like Leslie was this person she was supposed to know, and Ben too, but that weird sensation went away after a while. Mostly because then April nearly fell asleep because Leslie was still talking.

The one person she hadn't really gotten to see that often in the past week was Andy. In and of itself that was fine. They weren't attached at the hip, and they both spent plenty of time away from one another either at school for April or practicing with Andy, but the absences were different. 

Those absences scared her because every single night would be the same:

"Hey Andy," she'd say to him, masking her own worry. "Practice was pretty long tonight. Anything wrong?"

"Oh sorry, I forgot," he would return, shaking his head. "I had... uh, other stuff to do."

He was always a terrible liar, and any time he'd lie down after that he'd be drenched in sweat, and he wasn't distant either. Every time he would get in bed like nothing was the matter and they didn't totally have plans to lie around, make out, and maybe open the laptop or skip that and just do it. But then he'd still be cuddly Andy in bed and that was nice, but equally disturbing.

So, somewhere, she just hoped that he was actually busy with something else and not someone else. April loathed those thoughts, and she knew they  _had_ to be unfounded - they just had to be unfounded, right? - but they were still present, and some of them made her wonder what she'd actually done for him. That was truly the most debilitating line of thinking she found herself on one day when left alone.

Andy had been there for her all these years, but was she? In her head she knew that it really didn't matter, and that in fact she was responsible for getting Mouserat back together, but it all seemed small and pointless in comparison to what he'd done for her. It was kind of sickening actually, how the sweet Andy was making her feel just as bad, and so she just sat in bed all that night thinking about it.

That's how she came to conclusion that, in combination with him refusing to tell her what he had been up to, he'd been shopping himself around for a week. It was the only reasonable explanation - he was cheating on her. So when Ben picks her up later that night, and she's barely ready because she can't stop thinking of it, it's no surprise that Andy isn't there when he comes.

"Is Andy not coming?" he asked her on the walk to his car. 

"Oh, he'll come... I think," she shrugged, "I'll just tell him where we are, he can get a cab or something to take him."

"All right," Ben hesitated to walk out of the bar, turning to face her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine. I think he's just having a hard time finding a recording space that will take IOU's and waffles as payment," she donned a poor imitation smile and started to move but Ben wasn't budging.

"I meant are you okay?" he squinted.

This was the part she hated about him. If Andy took actions and did things when she was clearly not doing well, Ben talked to her. It was kind of gross, and she had told him years ago to stop coming on like that, but then he'd ask anyways and it would only scare her more. Was she okay? She thought she was doing fine, and it had been years since even the fleeting thought of finding the tallest building in Indianapolis occurred to her,  so obviously she was doing well. _  
_

"Stop trying to be friendly," she grimaced and pushed the door out to go find his car.

"You're the one who wanted to..." she could hear him saying behind her back as he shuffled out, "whatever, just don't scare the waiter off this time."

"I make no promises," she returned, sitting in the back seat when they found his car.

"April!" Leslie's smile was far sincerer than her own, but it wasn't overbearing. "Where's Andy?"

"He's gonna meet up with us," Ben answered for her. 

"Yeah, he's got some stuff to do tonight I think," April nodded when Leslie turned around. 

"Oh, well that's no biggie right? Just the three of us for a little bit won't be so bad, April," Leslie turned around to look at her. "It'll be fun, and we can get more appetizers this way. I wonder if they'll serve dessert first?"

The car ride was nothing but that, and April hated it more than any other thought in her head. Sure, Leslie was great but the moment she began on dessert it was followed by an interrogation that lasted the entire drive. April could only answer with "I have no idea" so many times before Leslie gave her a disappointed look and she had to actually think of an answer for her absurd requests. The place wasn't fancy, and to be honest none of them would have been able to afford anything above a mediocre diner.

April sat alone in front of the two of them. Watching them was grossing her out by the second, even when they weren't actually doing anything, so April remained focused on the menu the whole time. She wasn't even that hungry. Now that she was sitting down she didn't even remember what the whole point of this date was at all.

"I doubt they'll be as good as JJ's though," Leslie grumbled, scrunching her nose up at the menu. "I bet you miss that place as much as I do, April."

"Oh totally," she feigned enthusiasm, because JJ's wasn't that important to her. "Yeah, I'll always miss those... waffles, I guess."

"Oh no," Ben shook his head and looked over to his girlfriend, who was beaming. "Don't get her started on those, it takes me hours to-"

"That must be Andy," April pulls her phone out after it buzzes in her pocket. "Says he'll be late, and not to wait up for him. Awesome."

"He's probably just... found a place," Ben offered but April barely heard him. "You said he's out finding a cheap studio and that can take a lot of time."

Maybe she was paranoid, maybe a little overworked, but April didn't think that was it. Andy never missed out on free food - getting Ben to pay for their food was a special skill April had acquired that took a pinch of real hate and a little acting - but now he was going to be late and, from the sounds of it, didn't seem that bothered. But it was okay, because somewhere April understood. She was okay with it, in a way, and ready for him to return so they could talk about it.

So she could find out just how many more times she could look Andy in the eyes without hating him. That was going to be the worst feeling, and she dreaded even thinking about it because it was  _Andy_ , but April knew better. Even if she had never been cheated on before, that didn't make a difference - she could tell  _something_ was going on and Andy's unwillingness to say anything about the last week could only have one logical conclusion.

April refused to talk for the rest of the night, ordering something randomly off the menu and barely eating the weird spinach nightmare that came out, and sat watching Leslie and Ben talk awkwardly around her. It was an unusual grip on her mind this time - that familiar and terrifying doubt - but it didn't make her sick to her stomach like April anticipated, and she felt almost at peace with the possibility of it. Though on one level she couldn't fathom Andy sneaking around behind her back, on another she knew that he didn't want to hurt her and even if he was bored or done with her he wouldn't want her to know. Of course it would have to be fueled by some weird sense of wanting to constantly make her happy but that only made it worse for her.

Her thoughts made it worse, to the point that April was staring at her hands for at least an hour, until she absentmindedly checked her phone and saw that he was on his way. At least she could stop pretending that she wasn't thinking this anymore. That was a pretty calming thought. April let that keep her sane for the next ten minutes.

Ten very long minutes and then he's waved over and kissed her on the cheek like nothing was different. For the first time in a long time she actually pulled back at his touch, sliding away from him when his arm fell naturally over the back of the booth. Ben noticed, Leslie too, but Andy kept talking like it was nothing. Every once and a while he would so something strange with his free hand in his jacket pocket, but April only noticed it because their words were starting to fade. Their words fell around her without much meaning at all, in fact. Every once and a while April responded to someone with an unassuming nod or shrug, and they'd move on.

At one point Andy turned to her and cocked his head, eyebrows bunched up, but she just smiled and patted his hand. 

That was apparently all he needed, and somehow so much time's passed that Ben's dropping them off, because he tried to lead her with his arm over her shoulder. Again she squirmed out of his embrace, bolting up the stairs to the apartment and struggling with her keys by the time he made the few steps himself. 

"April, what's up?" he asked, sincere and quiet when she opened the door and he walked in, closing it slowly. "You were acting super weird back there."

"I need to know something," she turned to face him and tried to conjure up the will to ask.

"Sure... what?" his face was suddenly redder than before and she knew it. 

She had been right this whole time. April didn't even need an answer. That was enough for her, his absurd amount of perspiration the moment he began a lie, and she knew everything.

"I need to know how long you've been... seeing people," she choked.

"I see people everyday, babe," he laughed, clearly misunderstanding until he saw her trembling. "Hey, woah, calm down... what's; what's wrong?"

April's head was starting to spin and she couldn't think straight anymore. Andy had found her shoulders at some point and was setting her down on the bed. His voice eventually came back into focus but more importantly his hands were moved away and he looked more confused than ever.

"-ril, April!" he was saying, waving at her. "Do you need me to call someone? Is this a panic attack? I never know, I'm sorry-"

"It's not Andy," she interrupted him before he got too worked up and called every hospital in the Midwest, "it's not a panic attack. Not yet, I think I'm okay though. Just get me some water, please."

"Got it," he sprung up, and she saw him looking back to her rapidly while he filled a glass before returning. "Here."

"Thanks," and she drained the entire thing in one long chug.

Taking deep breaths, April tried to remain focused on the goal here. It was to find out just so she could have some closure and not be left in an infinitely spiraling mess. At least knowing would stem the tide to a healthier torrent of pain and not the backed up flood washing over her constantly. Day in day out, even if only for a week, was horrible. She needed to cut him off if he was going to be this toxic. April had to shake herself away from those thoughts, or at least the path they seemed to be on, and get back to reality - the reality of Andy looking at her eyes and watching her movements.

"I super need you to answer this truthfully," April demanded, taking one final cycle of deep breaths before continuing.

"Whatever you need, babe," he took her hand in his and it was a sickening warmth. "Do you need more water, or can I get you food because you didn't eat and-"

"I need to know how long you've been seeing other people," she interrupted, staring back into his eyes. "I need to know Andy, or I'll go insane."

"I told you I see..." but then something forms on his face, almost hurt but mostly surprise, before he shakes his head and closes his eyes while speaking, "wait, do you mean like cheating?"

"Yes, I mean like cheating," she scoffed. "Are you cheating on me?"

April pulled away from him and stood up. Walking over to the small kitchen, she refilled the glass and took another drink. She heard him follow her the few feet's worth of distance, heavy footfalls of his weight slumping downward, but she couldn't turn around. No matter how badly she had to know she didn't want to see his face when he said it. She didn't want to see him finger something in his jacket again. When he said:

_Yes._

And then he would say he was sorry, and that he wanted to tell her, but she would understand. April would understand all too well how much he would want to get away from her. 

"Why do you think that?" he muttered, fingering the counter.

"You've just been really... distant and that's my job," she explained. "I don't know, you never; you sorta never talk about your days and you're super weird about it."

"Why would I cheat on you?" he shook his head again and she saw his hand dip inside his jacket pocket again.

"What?" she wasn't prepared for that.

"Why do you think I'd do that to you?" the look in his eyes was so hurt, no longer sweaty and uncomfortable, and April had doubts about her assumption.

"Because... you do a ton of awesome stuff for me, and you're always there," she shrugged, "except when you're not, like this last week. And I think I really needed you."

"I'm not doing awesome stuff, April," Andy squints at her. "It's-"

"Dude, you were about to get half of Indianapolis searching for a clinic a second ago," she laughed, holding up the glass of water and still thankful for the easier breaths.

"That's not what I mean, I meant... I guess that's just what I  _want_ to do, y'know? Like, do you think I'm gonna sit here and watch you have a panic attack calmly?" he gave her an incredulous look and April noticed his hands wrap around something in his pocket again without moving away.

"No, I don't mean that Andy. You're sweet, and amazing, and that's the point I guess. You didn't want to tell me because you cared too much but that sucks too, y'know?" she tried to explain, putting the glass of water down and kicking her shoes off finally, all while working through these thoughts in her head.

"Don't ever think that," he walked closer to her and April didn't feel the need to shrink back when she looked at his hurt features, "that's the reason that I've been kinda doing stuff all week. It's kinda dumb, I know, and you're probably gonna hate it..."

"More than you cheating?" she cracked a smile.

"Honestly, I don't know!" he laughed, and finally pulled his hand out of the jacket pocket. "It was kinda this."

What he had was a box. A small, red felt box that made April's brain stop altogether and restart in panic mode. Her heart gave up trying to steady itself and her gaze flicked back from the box to him over and over again until he finally nodded. 

"Andy," she warned.

"April," he started, breathing hard. 

"Andy," she tilted her head, widening her eyes and staring at him. 

"April," and he opened the box, leaving his hand hovering over the contents. 

Whatever thoughts that were in her head before were melting away. She even had a passing concern that he was shoving aside the cheating with some incredible planning, but at the same time that definitely wasn't Andy's style. Then again, neither was proposing and there he was standing in front of her when he moved his hand inside the container. He produced the ring, silver and plain, and she couldn't focus on anything anymore. 

"April, I think you're the coolest person in the world and I wasn't lying when I said I want to spend every second, all of them, with you," he moved the ring closer to her in his fingers. "So I guess I kinda want to marry you."

With her hands stilled at her side, she looked at Andy again. He was entirely serious. There was no joke here, no secret other than that ring and his thoughts, and somewhere she should have seen this coming. He was constantly joking about marrying her. It even got to the point that he tried proposing with a gummy worm he ripped in half and reattached in a circle but she just ate it. That was followed by a pretty all right night, but no marriage. 

Now though, he was serious. Something was still off, though.

"Why... a week? What was-"

"I needed to, um... there's a place around the corner, that dry cleaners you hate," he scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, those guys ruined, like, four of my shirts," she grunted. "What about them?"

"They needed a second shift and I'd already sold one of my guitars-"

"Andy!" 

"But this is important, and I've got three more. Don't worry, I didn't even like the Martin that much," he shrugged her off, still holding the ring up to her. "And I was about two hundred off the one I thought I could afford, so I took the shift."

"You-"

"I got them to pay me on the first week because they were sorry about ruining your clothes," he laughed again. "So before I went to meet up with you guys I had to get this before, like, six."

"So you've been working behind my back? Not sleeping around... but working?" she was still so shook that the ring was barely even part of the equation.

"Because of this," he took her left hand and let the ring hover by her finger, "and because I totally wanna be your husband." 

"This is what I mean, dude," she smiled wide this time, taking the ring and putting it on herself. "You always do awesome stuff."

"So it's a yes?" he raised his hands in preparation. 

"Totally," she brought his arms down when they shot up in the air, leaning forward and kissing him gently on the lips. "I totally wanna be your wife, and I'm sorry I was being weird. Just tell me next time, okay?"

"Yeah, sorry about making you worry-"

"Oh my God, you can't keep apologizing for being weirdly romantic," she smacked his arm. "You have to agree to that or I won't marry you."

"Done," he said hastily, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her up to sit on the counter. "Deal, whatever."

"Are we getting married?" she asked him softly, her arms around his neck.

"I think we are," and he buried his face in her neck.

That was the one time, the singular moment, that April ever considered remotely that Andy would cheat on her. Thinking back on it, Andy's ridiculous money scrounging was perfect. And maybe it would be perfect, even if they were poorer than in years, if they could do it together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a reason I said "suspected" cheating :D


	52. Say It's Better This Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested on tumblr as "200ish texts/calls to April when she was in Venezuela." 
> 
> My brain cannot handle writing like an actual text for too long, so it's not because I think they were at all punctuated or spelled correctly. I'm just incapable of writing it without fracturing my sanity.

It's easy to hate Andy now, and for some reason that's a better cure for the strange flurry of emotions, because before April was sincere and  _open_ and herself to him and - just like everyone else - Andy wasn't what he initially seemed. He was the exact reason she rarely let people beyond her outward persona, never let them in, and no matter what he said she couldn't let him do that to her again. Not even when it's a few hours later and she starts getting the texts that keep coming, nonstop, for weeks.

_It didn't mean anything. She kissed me I'm sorry can I talk to you?_

But all April does is growl and get angrier. As far as she's concerned she never wants to see him again, let alone talk to him.

 

* * *

 

An annoying amount of sun and drinking poolside helps assuage that feeling. Even after fifty-two texts, and seventeen voicemails, April hasn't given in and so much as looked at them. He was just Andy, anyways. Sweet and hilarious, oafish and strangely sweaty, and definitely Andy. Meanwhile, she was enjoying a guy who had an estate with several pools and abs that made her head spin.

He was definitely better than Andy. Definitely.

Which is why, of course, she takes a sojourn to Venezuela not long afterward and leaves that snob behind. He was boring anyways. April couldn't even remember his name by the time she charged her dad's card with the ticket and when she boarded she wasn't sure any of that week had happened. Maybe it was better that way, she thought. She wasn't even sure why that crossed her mind, but April instead sleeps and is happy she doesn't have to hear her phone go off for the rest of the flight.

 

* * *

 

The first few days she doesn't have an itinerary, or really anywhere to stay, but hopping between places is pretty fun at first. Stealing into small houses that look empty, wishing she'd chosen somewhere with condos by a beach that wasn't littered with oil tankers, and generally paying nothing to get by is fun. Something's missing from all of it, though. When she's in one particular place, the owner of which seems absurdly rich if he just abandons a small mansion like this, walking around the kitchen and eating the small amount of food in the freezer actually  _sucks_.

Standing in the marbled room, her phone vibrates on the counter and it's the only one she's heard in four days. It brought the count up to seventy-three texts and twenty-one voicemails. Not that April was counting or that she read them despite the short delays. April doesn't know why she's doing it but she immediately, hurriedly, finds the newcomer.

_I have no idea why you're so mad. Maybe we can go out and talk about it or something. Sorry._

"Ugh," she sighs when she reads it. 

Of all the things he could've said, continuing with his feigned ignorance wasn't his best plan. April ignores the phone for the rest of the night and claps to herself, alone, when she discovers a small wine cellar. At least drinking alone, _lonely_ , wasn't boring.

 

* * *

 

April stays at that place for a while, another few days, before she knows she has to make it back to the airport. Sandwiched between all one hundred and thirty-two texts - 

_You're the best person ever, and I'm sorry._

_This is my fault right? I think, I guess. I don't know. Sorry._

_20 minutes, Burly's place. Don't forget your kit this time, dude._

_Sorry, that wasn't for you. But if you want to come hang out while we jam that's cool!_

And so many more of them, just like that, are a few from her parents and her sister. Alongside the thirty-four voicemails, her dad screams at her a few times and April just deletes those immediately. For some reason, though, at least some version of all of those messages is on her phone. Sitting on the patio of the summer house, a glass of some incredibly expensive wine forgotten for the bottle, April lies back and stares at all the messages. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling...

They're all right there in front of her and she still hates him. But it's different, again, and something about how strange it is somehow also makes the most sense in the world. April didn't know what the hell it was she was feeling, looking at those short messages and pleas, that made it different for him. He was just Andy, after all. Just Andy. 

April's sure that when she stands up something wet is on her face. Luckily, she can tell herself that it's starting to rain and go back inside. That way she doesn't have to think about him, or about herself, and why she's done this to the both of them. Or why it feels right to her that she's doing this to him, and to herself. Maybe those thoughts are stray mistakes, errors in her usually calm detachment, but then again:

_April where are you? I'm sorry. Like, super sorry._

"I don't know why you won't answer my messages," his voice crackles, "but I mean it. I'm sorry. You're so awesome and I messed up, I guess? I don't know. I'm confused, like really confused, right now."

 

* * *

 

She sees him at the airport. He's attractive, has kind of a blank stare, and sits next to her on the flight. Eduardo, she thinks is his name, boards for Eagleton with her and she gets a new idea. A new plan to deal with Andy. It involved less crying - well, it was hard to have less crying because April obviously never so much as gave him a second thought let alone a single tear - and a lot more angry, vapid sex. 

When they land, April checks her phone absentmindedly. Number two hundred is in. 

"Wow," Eduardo exclaims, "who keeps calling you?"

"Just some idiot," she returns in Spanish. "He doesn't matter at all. Kind of a creepy guy, actually."

"Really?" he nods. "You keep reading his texts though."

He points to her phone and it takes a second for April to realize that she isn't actually looking at Eduardo. Her thumb stops at the text Andy's just sent, and she barely hears what the guy standing next to her is saying,  because she's too busy reading it.

_So you're just gonna be mad at me forever? Sorry. Maybe we can be friends still, because you're way too cool. I'm sorry._

It's number two hundred, it's only been a few weeks, and April wants to find Andy and be okay with him. She desperately  _wants_ to do that, and for everything to be all right, but then she remembers what it felt like when he said that Ann kissed him. A glass heart shattered in that second and April can barely scrape up the pieces as it is. She doesn't want to give him another chance, but she can't look at Eduardo for a few minutes because there's no rain this time.

 

* * *

 

Hatred is easier than love. Deception easier than truth, and April's okay with that. So she thinks. It's okay, and everything will be okay, she has to remind herself. All she has to do is hide behind the outward misanthropy forever so no one could see her for herself again. It's safer that way.

It's... better?


	53. Obviously

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kid-centric today! Requested anonymously on tumblr. I'll be filling out the requests I have left for a while but this one really intrigued me. Mostly because my first instinct was first-person perspective and that's really unusual for me.
> 
> Kinda linked to 47.

I never really thought about it too much, probably because it wasn't ever really a question in my mind, but I guess since I'm sitting talking to my parents about it there must be something there.

If anyone will understand, it's them. They're actual lunatics just like the rest of this town, every single Pawneean, so they're used to weird - mom's kind of scary, dad's somehow  _not_ dead - but that's the problem I think. I never thought of it as  _weird_ or strange, unnatural, or anything like that. It was just me. Other people don't really seem to understand that concept, and to be honest I don't really care what they think, but they've also scared me into never saying anything about it and my parents are fed up with it.

Even so, I'm still worried. Still worried of the minute chance they will actually hate me. So I'm sitting here in our living room, trying to work it out in a way they'll understand.

 

* * *

 

You don't really know how to put these things together when you're younger. Even when you  _know_ you don't really know, like it's an instinct or something, but it isn't what you think you're supposed to have or do. It wasn't some grand revelation for me, I don't think. I just remember being fourteen and really kissing a boy and  _hating_ it. I didn't hate him - he was sweet, clumsy, stupid and everything that dumb teenage boys are - but something felt strange about the whole thing.

I chalked it all up to a shitty first kiss. Real life isn't a fairy tale, y'know? You can't expect the first time someone tries to make out with you to be anything other than gross or intrusive, all limp tongues and absent minds. That's all I assumed it was, but when I told some of my best friends how terrible it was none of them understood what I meant.

"He must have just been bad," Chloe said to me and the others agreed.

"Yeah," I nodded.

She usually knew what she was talking about anyways. Every year she was always at the top of the class, knew everything that was supposedly cool, and she never had anything bad to say about anyone. Chloe was the cool "prep" that everyone hoped their high school would have, and everyone magnetized to her naturally. It was kind of amazing that she even bothered with me and whenever she gave me advice I listened. Even when I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to live up to her expectations that advice demanded, I listened.

Then when I thought about it, it wasn't really that. I mean yeah looking back it  _was_ terrible but I didn't know that then and all I remember thinking after the kiss was that it wasn't satisfying. Took me a year or two to figure out that's what the feeling was, specifically, but that was it: unsatisfactory. Almost like I was cheating myself out of something but I still wasn't sure what the hell I was missing out on was, or why I felt so bummed out about it.

Part of it was because the guy, James, was - is - one of my best friends. I've known him since I was in preschool and  _thought_ I was really into him. He was cute, as far as a long face and short nose could be, and the two years of ASL I picked up with aunt Leslie's help made me realize how hilarious he was. We did everything together for years - I remember how shitty fifth grade was; we weren't in the same homeroom just because he was deaf and needed to be in a different classroom all day - and it just felt like the natural next step at first. I didn't want to hurt him, so I tried to make it work.

It was just one kiss, and we were stupid kids so what was the harm, right?

He wasn't weird and awkward around me because we knew each other pretty well, so I thought things would be all right. I don't even remember how we started actually dating, I just remember sitting on my couch and kissing him, all jerky and unsure at first, and then we were supposed to be something else. James was still awesome, he's still great, but things didn't actually feel all that different to me throughout any of the times we hung out after that.

I think it really hit me, at least a little bit, that there was something I wasn't getting at my fifteenth birthday party. Dad had thankfully listened to mom and I about not bringing Johnny Karate back, and I just wanted a few of my friends to hang out with me. James was first, and a few others, and Chloe naturally tagged along when I asked her to come.

"Happy birthday," James signed to me when his mom dropped him off.

"Thanks," I said to his mom and shook my head at the box he pulled out of the backseat. "I told you not to get me a present. I don't even like birthdays."

"That's stupid, everyone gets birthday presents," and he laughed that wheezing imitation that still makes me smile.

And when he kissed me on the cheek that disinterest returned even when I saw his mom smile at me. Everything that woman had gone through and here I was supposed to be his friend, but I could barely work up the effort to force a smile at his gesture. To be honest, I had actually forgotten for a second. Like I expected, he was the first person to get there and dad gave him another one of those stupid speeches through me.

"Bug, tell James that he's still cool by me," he told me, "but you guys can only hang out in the living room or the kitchen until everyone else gets here."

Naturally I told him that my dad was going to be busy mowing the lawn, so we could do whatever we wanted. If he ever did want to get the right thing across he would have to learn sign language. Sadly, mom had picked up a few of my favorites and was watching me work between them.

"Or you could tell him I'll be waiting underneath your bed," she said to me, smiling.

"Let's just find something to watch," I explained to James.

I guess it was all right sitting there, at first. My parents liked him too, and dad was the one that technically  _made_ me be friends with him at first, so there was another expectation destroyed. It didn't bother me at all that he was sitting right up against me with his arm over my shoulder, but that was kind of the problem: I didn't really feel anything when he did that. That same disinterest in that part of our relationship was there again, willing to go along but not really pleased, but sitting there and watching as many old  _Adventure Time_ episodes as we could before everyone else arrived was fine.

A few more people trickled in, a few people I can't remember that sat on the floor instead of bothering to push us aside, and already things felt cramped. Cramped but, somehow, I was disappointed. All night we just sat around watching random selections on streaming, all of us except Chloe. She texted me halfway through the night that she forgot about a family trip that weekend. Later, when everyone left and I gave James a crushing hug for the new laptop case and a short peck on the lips when his mom came back, mom had an inquisitive look for me that I mostly ignored. I was too busy glued to my phone.

_sorry i couldnt make it bobby_

I loved that nickname, and I didn't really know why then. She was the only one who called me that but I liked it. It made sense to me that she gave me a nickname.

_its fine everything was boring anyways_

_james still suck at kissing?_

It took me a while to answer that, because I couldn't really remember. We didn't make out at all, except once, after that first time. I made up some bullshit story that I don't really remember but it all amounted to saying he was fine. Lying to her like that, for some reason, stung way worse. She didn't say anything to me for the rest of the weekend really. Then again I made sure not to talk to her the whole time rather than the other way around. Monday at school she confronted me about it, a little confused but mostly with a request.

"Maybe we should hang out since I missed your party," she brought up to me at lunch.

"It really wasn't a party, I told you," I laughed.

"Oh, shut up," she scoffed and for a second I thought she was serious. "If that wasn't your party then we can have a real party."

"Sounds cool," I nodded. "We could even watch some of those super sappy movies you like."

"You're the one who made  _me_ watch  _The Fault in Our Stars_ ," she pointed back at me. "I'd rather watch something campy and stupid."

"We can do that, then," I added hurriedly.

"It's your party, Bobby," she shook her head. "Calm down. We'll watch that stupid movie again. It's only been what-"

"Five," I interrupted.

"Six! Six times you made me watch that, and I swear if I have to watch it again..." she exclaimed before nodding at someone behind me. "Whatever, maybe James can come too."

"Oh, yeah I guess," I shrugged and he sat down next to me.

Conversation effectively died when he sat with us. Not because he didn't understand, because I'd gotten pretty good at translating under the table for him while people talked, but I felt weird having the previous talk about parties around him. I didn't realize it then, but I didn't want him to come along. I wanted to hang out with her. It was hard to explain at the time, I guess, because I thought I'd be losing something with him there. I hadn't even known her all that long, only a few years since sixth grade, but I wanted to sit around in our PJ's and watch stupid movies with Chloe. We did that all the time and letting James in on it seemed like a bad idea.

I never brought it up with him and spent most of the day excited for that night. Whatever stupid movie ended up playing would be just for us, just like they always were, and I wasn't about to break that tradition. Maybe I should have, honestly. Looking back it might have made things a little less clear but a little easier too. Would have made things easier on all of us.

Before she even came over I was ready, decked out in gigantic flannel dad gave me and trying to ignore texts from James, and to anyone else it would have seemed like I was nervous. To me that was normal then. I had gotten used to being so restricted around my girlfriends, trying to be cool and prepared for anything, but none of them made me - and it really should have hit me then - as jittery as Chloe did. When she got there I was still trying to figure out what to watch and I didn't hear her come into my room at first.

"Hey," she got out after clearing her throat.

Turning around I forgot a lot of my worry and just wanted to smile, she always said I had a pretty smile, and laugh -  _Bobby, your laugh is weird as hell but you gotta do it more_. Sitting in for a much better, less crowded and perfectly full, party was what I needed.

"I can make popcorn or I think we can order a pizza-"

"Pizza sounds awesome," Chloe sighed, sitting down on the bean bag chair by my desk. "I guess your parents are out."

"Some stupid dinner she had to go to," I shrugged, trying to remember why I didn't just put my parents' regular place in my contacts. "Had to get dressed up and everything. Dad basically had to carry her there."

"Dinner for what?" she asked me, bouncing on the small bag.

"Um, just something in her honor," I remember telling myself I was trying to figure out what was written on her shirt. "Like, an award I think."

"Oh, that sounds cool. She works for the government right?" suddenly Chloe was excited and walking over to the bed.

"Yeah, I guess," I wasn't expecting her to sit down facing me, so close, and my brain was starting to think up millions of solutions to that.

"I always wanted to do something like that, y'know?" all this energy was so strange to me, Chloe usually not totally gone but definitely always mild. "People here suck and I bet I could do a better job taking care of this town than them."

"Probably," I nodded, watching how quickly she turned on at this outburst. "I didn't know you wanted to do stuff like that."

"I guess I never talked about it with you," Chloe considered it before shaking her head. "I hear you have to be super smart to work in Pawnee now. Especially if you wanna do anything like maintenance or that parks stuff."

"My dad works at City Hall," I laughed, watching her chuckle too, before I thought about what she was saying. "You're the smartest person in the whole school."

"That's nice, but I don't think so," she bit her bottom lip hard, and I think I tried to do the same then and realized quickly that I was staring.

"You could do whatever you want, Chloe," I think is the brilliant line I came up with, mumbling but keeping eye contact.

I don't remember if she said anything to me after that. Things were kind of silent for a bit, I think, and we were still a lot closer than I thought we'd ever been. I want to keep that memory burned, but I do remember that her eyes moved quickly downward and up again and she did that stupid tick of touching her long hair and rolling it over her hand a few times. She probably still does that. I wouldn't know, I haven't talked to Chloe since then. Ever since I made the snap judgment of moving my hand onto her cheek and kissing her we haven't really talked.

Everything made sense to me then, right then when I kissed her, but I'm not sure what I thought. Probably something silly that seemed poignant at the time, like I was understanding what I was missing all this time with James, but she didn't seem to reciprocate. I didn't know what it was like to have someone meet me halfway, to want it as much as I did, so I assumed this was the right thing. To me, this was natural and felt like the thing I was supposed to do. What else was I meant to do other than kiss someone that, I think, I really wanted to? Probably do nothing, actually. It would have been easier on everyone if that was the case.

Her lips felt closer to what I imagined a kiss to be - all warm, soft and full, and my entire body was charged in a different way than with anyone else - but she didn't act like James did. Chloe didn't feel like she wanted it, and I know I was scared in that moment because I realized my mistake, and it scared me. It scared me to watch her wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. I was terrified when she looked at me like a scared animal looks at a hunter, cautious and ready to strike, and didn't know what to do.

Then when she called her mom a few minutes later to pick her up, suddenly sick, I was petrified of the way she moved around me, terrified of my presence, until she left. When I got back in bed, leaving her to let herself out, I'm pretty sure I made some disgusting noises bawling like that. Luckily, by the time my parents got home I was cried out. I definitely looked like it.

"Where's your friend, uh, the blonde one-"

"She left," I interrupted my mom shortly. "Got sick."

"Oh," she probably noticed that I was all snotty and red all over the face. "If you wanna talk about something..."

"No," I distinctly remember how quickly I responded.

I didn't want to talk about it because it never happened as far as I was concerned. As far as going to school the next day, Chloe not sitting with James and I at lunch, and being around everyone else I wasn't going to even think about it let alone say anything to anyone about what happened that night. It was a mistake, obviously, but I assumed that feeling something for her was the mistake.

 

* * *

 

I'm nineteen and sitting in the living room of my parents' house over summer break. College is terrible, mostly, but people there don't really bother me the same way people in Pawnee did. Probably because they didn't know anything about me for the most part - who really looks at someone and figures out they're gay just by spotting them - and it's nice. Even if I can't be myself, openly, to the people in my dorm I don't even know if I'd want to. They're not awful, but they're not really my friends either.

I can be open with the girl, the normal hometown track star that wanted to be an author, I met through first semester math though.

"I'm Sarah," she explained to my mom when she walked in with me. "I, uh-"

That's when I brought everyone in the living room. My parents sat across from us and I assumed we would have to do the dramatic coming out together. I always knew my parents would support me, and I'll never believe they'd do anything but he happy that I was happy, but I was still scared. Well, I  _was_ scared. Now I'm just really confused how they knew.

"So you're the girlfriend?" dad nods to my mom. "Huh."

"Yeah, this is definitely the one," she looks back to him. "I didn't think tall brunettes were your type."

"I... have a type?" I get out. "Wait, wait, wait."

"I thought you said they didn't know?" Sarah whispers to me, her hand not trembling as much on mine.

"Oh, she didn't know we knew but we knew," dad explains before squinting away from us and scratching his graying beard.

"Bug, I raised a smarter girl than that," mom laughs and smacks dad so that he shakes out of his apparently deep concentration. "Didn't we Andy?"

"Oh, yeah, totally. Don't be stupid," he points a stern finger at me. "I mean, be happy. Right?"

"Yeah, just be happy," she pats his hand and stands up. "By the way, it was blondes."

Sarah laughs at my mom, and I really love the way she returns that with a grin. I guess it felt all right, even though technically nothing changed. I was so balled up, so worried that they would be scared of me like Chloe had been that I hesitated I guess, but it's obvious they're not going to disown me just for wanting to be happy. It's nice, really, to have something like this pan out for once.


	54. Cut - Break Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by a guest reviewer on FFN as "April having a small breakdown/bad day without Andy to help her. [truncated]" Much closer to 51 than any other Cut continuity because of my way of doing that.
> 
> There's themes of, and an entire, panic attack described in here, so if you've got any issues with that just be wary it's there.

There wasn't much that made less sense to April than getting married - everything about it seemed out-of-date and basically a gigantic tax benefit - but a select few things made more sense than getting married to Andy. Despite what others would tell her, and what she knew for herself, he was one of those few that made her legitimately happy without any ulterior motive. Everything he did was just because that's who he was: a gigantic puppy who just wanted her to smile a lot more than was natural. It was sickening, almost, but thinking about him  _did_ make her smile. Apparently obviously, because Leslie noticed.

"You seem really happy about something," she said while spooning another large clump of whipped cream into her coffee. 

April didn't know why she kept agreeing to hanging out with Leslie. The only thing that ever came out of it was being perpetually confused why this woman wanted to be around Ben. He seemed so boring and rote, nerdy sometimes, and she at least seemed all right. The very least, April got free coffee. That was always okay by her.

"You seem like you don't even want the coffee part of... this," April gestured to the small cup now overloaded with white cream. 

"It's the best part of coffee," Leslie explained, finishing with a few extra inches of height to her cup. "Still kind of terrible, though."

"Yep," April mumbled.

That's all she wanted to talk about - the coffee. At least then April wouldn't have to try and explain anything to her. Sitting in the booth of the small diner a block up from their apartment, things were pretty quiet most days. April ate there every once and a while when Andy forgot that he was supposed to get the takeout or in the rare occasion they felt like doing something other than sitting in. There were only a handful of roughly maintained booths and the bar to match the grungy floors and partial lighting, every bit of it as downtrodden and understaffed as April liked. 

In the back where they sat, April could look over her shoulder out the large pane glass window and stare into the streets of bumbling pedestrians and staid traffic. Something about the order of it calmed her a little bit. Thankfully, she hadn't needed a reason to go to the diner by herself and watch the cars go by alone. Things were, for once, fine. Even if just a few weeks before she was shaking in bed, worrying that Andy was moving on, and only five or so days after that she couldn't sleep because of the decision they'd made, life felt like what she expected normal was supposed to be. Her head wouldn't ever be free from constant, everflowing doubt and worry over even insignificant decisions but she could handle it with him.

Maybe that was scarier than anything else.

"I feel like we haven't gotten a good chance to talk in a while," Leslie said after taking a drink, or bite, of her coffee hybrid. "Not that you really talk to me ever, or that you really seem to want to, but-"

"We're talking now," April sighed, trying to remember what she was thinking about just moments before.

"Fair enough," Leslie motioned, stirring her coffee. 

"Good," April replied flatly.

If there was one thing she liked about the movement of blind traffic, it was the detachment. Everyone did what they were supposed to do, only paying attention to other people in theory, and everything seemed to work out for them. Rules were bent and played with every few feet and people only got hurt every once and a while. It was a relaxing thought. Looking out the window, there were two cars stopped at the light by the diner and neither of the drivers were going to care at all about the other - one of them fiddling with the rearview mirror and the other holding onto the wheel and slumped over in their seat - which just made sense to April. Taking a drink from her cup, she looked back to the table and away from the street. 

Maybe the scariest part of everything was that April didn't know what made things so much easier with Andy. It wasn't like laughing was the absolute worst thing in the world to do, and she couldn't help herself when he made her do it inadvertently every few minutes, but was that enough? Then again, and April took another long drink finishing the cup, where was that line to begin with? When was she  _supposed_ to decide what enough even was? 

"How are classes?" Leslie interrupted her thoughts, the tower of sugar broken down brick-by-brick while April was busy worrying her head with too many thoughts.

"Fine," April muttered. "Everything's fine."

"Well, I know I got a little bummed when I went to my last lecture," Leslie said almost wistfully while stirring the coffee again. "There are few things you experience quite like poly-sci 400's." 

"Ew," April grimaced. "I can't wait for next semester. I only have, like, one course I have to take and I can sleep the rest of the day."

"You're right, that'll give you more time for internships and work-study," Leslie nodded, taking a drink before continuing. "You'll be able to focus on building a portfolio-"

"Oh my God," April blurts out, annoyed at how far from the point she was, "you sound like my advisor. Please stop talking, I'm getting a headache."

"I've heard good things, too," Leslie smirked.

"Oh, I'm sure. I can't wait to work for some small town business for no pay just to maybe, possibly, get a job somewhere else," April scoffed, pushing the coffee cup to the side and ignoring the cooling contents. "Wait, no - I can. I'll take sleeping in with Andy over that."

"Speaking of which, how is Andy? We haven't seen you guys for a while," Leslie pounced on the topic immediately. 

April remembered, then, that they hadn't really told anyone about the whole marriage thing. She half-expected to go back on her agreement the next day, but some part of it made sense to her. Andy was one of those people that did make sense to her, even when he was baffling and an idiot he somehow still fit, and this was a natural evolution. They'd figure it out like everything else.

"Funny you should ask that," April reached inside her coat on the seat, pulling out the small circlet. 

"Why's th- oh," Leslie's face wasn't so much excitement but shock when April slid the thing on her hand. "Wow."

"It's cool, right?" April spun the metal on her finger a few times before it fit snug further down.

"Oh yeah, very cool, but... did you guys think about this at all?" Leslie asked, her voice a little more worried than April would have liked. 

"What's there to think about?" April returned, her right hand clamping over the ring instinctively.

She knew why overthinking it would be a problem. If she did that, April would eventually come to the conclusion - somehow - that this was a bad idea. No matter the bizarre paths she took or the insane realities she twisted in her head, it would stop feeling right if she let herself get lost in thought over it. April continued to hold onto the ring in her palm while Leslie sat there, mouth half-open mid idea, trying to pick apart her argument.

"Like, how you're not even out of college," Leslie offered.

"Or how we've known each other for almost six years," April countered, crossing her arms and trying not to raise any alarms in her mind.

"You barely have a place to live."

"We don't need a giant house. The apartment's fine."

"What about when you're not getting aid that helps you pay the rent?"

"Andy gets paid most of the time."

"For what? Playing with his band in clubs?"

"I save some of his money when we remember not to spend it at the bar."

"How about when he stops getting gigs? What then? What about when you're just... when you're barely able to feed yourself because you can't get work because you don't want to take internships? Or-"

"Why are you trying to stop this?" April interrupted the other woman.

"I'm not, you just don't seem to be thinking about it," Leslie tried to explain. "I think you guys are great and obviously you think things are going well, but is it really the best choice?"

That question hung in the air for a while after the two of them stopped their back and forth. April had been thinking of that, clearly, and it was the barrier that she hadn't wanted to cross - she didn't want to answer that - because when she did she knew the floodgates would be burst wide open. Everything else would come rushing into her mind, some unwarranted and overbearing and all of them too much to worry about now, but Leslie didn't know that. Still, it was a real worry - were they making the best choice? In all of their options, was this the best one?

Fingering the ring again, April sat further back in the booth and ignored Leslie's continuing words. Things were starting to blur around her, especially whatever Leslie was saying, and April could only really feel the warming metal and the distant sounds of motor traffic along with her thoughts. Just minutes ago she had been actually happy merely at the thought of their plan but now, and it all made sense, she had doubts. April looked down at the ring and her breathing was already getting harder and harder to deal with. Something - was it Leslie, maybe it was the traffic again - kept saying something in a lilting sound that could have been a question or a car horn.

April's head started to race with incomplete, scattered thoughts - maybe Andy wasn't...

Maybe she wasn't...? Were they...? Debts wouldn't be that bad... but maybe living in Indianapolis would be? An actual wedding seemed unnecessary anyways, because who cares...? Maybe they weren't - maybe she wasn't - maybe he didn't - maybe... maybe. What if? How were they supposed to... but maybe things would be easier when she was out of school. Or not? Maybe.

April's eyes were barely able to focus on anything in the diner while she seemingly stared at everything in the small building. Her eyes flicked between things momentarily, but none of it was recognizable and that terrified her. Nothing seemed familiar at all anymore and suddenly she couldn't remember where she was or what she was doing. Leslie was there, she thought, but now she was breathing so hard her entire brain had to work overtime to recoup the intake. Everything felt like fire, from her lungs to her thoughts, but April couldn't stop it.

"Les-Leslie," she sputtered, catching herself on the table.

If the other woman said anything April didn't hear it.

"Call Andy, Leslie. Call Andy - I need Andy. Call him. He knows what to do. Call him," April got out in a single breath.

"Okay," she imagined Leslie saying.

She must have imagined the whole thing, but none of that seemed right. April could definitely see the blonde woman yelling at someone out of her shrinking field of view, a look that April thought she knew the word for but couldn't really figure out, and a phone. Even that word was hard to find. The table, despite holding her weight, didn't even seem like it belonged. Where was it? In front of her? All April could see in front of her was a hazy fog that kept shrinking and even the air in the diner was thin and barely sustainable. 

Then she thought a question was directed at her but April couldn't parse it. The words were familiar but incredibly confusing at the same time, and even when she thought she twisted her neck to look out at the street even that looked empty and unfamiliar. Was she in a city? The streetlights and sidewalks were different from Pawnee and the cars were so much louder, and there were so many more of them than she remembered, but what was the place called? She went to school here, but what was it called? 

"April, where are you?" she definitely heard Leslie ask. 

"I-I... what? I'm here," April answered, but none of that sounded right to her, "I mean... I'm at the; we're... diner?"

"She answered me," Leslie spoke into the phone before April realized that she was sitting next to her in the booth and staring at her. "That's good, right?"

There was the sound of someone talking on the other end but April couldn't make heads nor tails of who it was. Something was trying to help her remember, but she couldn't quite get it. It felt only a few inches away. 

"Okay, um, then... here," Leslie offered April her phone. "Andy wants to talk to you, April."

Leslie pushed the phone into her hand and April brought it to her ear naturally. She still couldn't really make out what was happening around her, or where around her even was, but she vaguely recalled telling Leslie to call Andy. He knew what to do anyways. She'd taught him how to handle a panic attack after she had the first one when neither of them understood what it was and she had to struggle to breathe for an hour before she calmed down to find a completely distraught Andy. April could still remember the terrified look on his face, all sweaty and close, and the appointment they both agreed she had to make after that.

"April?" she heard his voice crackle. 

"Uh huh," she answered, nodding and swallowing a breath hard. 

"Okay babe, listen to me... um, what's the first thing you see?" he asked her, his voice huffing like he was exerting himself. 

"There's a... one of those," she blinked faster and slammed her palm on the- "table. Holding onto a table."

"Awesome, who's with you?" he groaned and April thought she heard the sound of a car outside honking twice.

"Leslie. Leslie's here," April pointed to the woman who nodded quickly, the growing fear on her face starting to fade.

"You're doing so good. You're amazing," Andy said quietly and April's breaths eased slightly. "Just.. gimme, like, two seconds."

"What?" she asked quickly, appreciating the opening fog around her vision and the clearer thoughts and easier words. 

He didn't hang up but she didn't hear him saying anything for a few seconds. Then someone entered the diner and she could hear his breaths twice over and when April looked over Andy was sweating through a shirt and looked so out of breath he might collapse before she did. Leslie moved out of the booth when April scooted forward, closer towards him, and made way for her to shakily step out. As if expecting that, Andy stood by and let her move herself. Her eyes were clearer and things seemed to fade out of vision less and less, but she couldn't see much else other than him anyways.

When she stood up, Andy let her move for a bit before she had to steady herself on the table and his chest. His hand found hers, just as sweaty as the rest of him, and April squeezed it as hard as she could. He was definitely right there. 

"I don't know what happened, she just suddenly... it just happened," Leslie piped up, her eyes still wide. "We were talking about... oh. Oh my God, I'm so sorry."

"Leslie, stop," April breathed out, the pressure in her chest easing up to allow some annoyance. 

"No, we were talking about you guys getting married and I was; I'm sorry," this time Leslie was looking at Andy, who moved to wrap an arm over April's shoulder.

"Don't worry about it, she just - it happens," Andy found the words where April couldn't and she was thankful for that. "Sometimes we can't stop it, we just gotta deal with it."

Then the woman tilted her head at Andy's words before he left while helping April along out the door. April was thankful for the sad smile Leslie gave her, and the way that Andy helped her into a cab. After a few mouthfuls of water her throat wasn't aching like she had just been punched in the neck over and over again, and at home she could try to relax and let Andy sit with her. Holding his hand, the other playing with strands of her hair, and things seemed smoother. The world felt less jagged and angular, all sharp corners and hard movement, and more like the warmth of her reality. 

_We gotta deal with it_

That's what he said in the diner. Andy understood that she couldn't help it, and things like this were always going to happen to her no matter what she did and no matter how hard she tried, and that's probably why she didn't really need to think about them.


	55. Little Else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief little idea I had. Related to the whole "April with depression" idea/theory/whatever that I still mumble about occasionally. I just kept thinking of dumb, adorable dialogue and this fell out.
> 
> Enjoy!

"Do you ever think about, like, us?" April asked him from the floor in the lake house.

"What?" Andy didn't know how to answer that since it seemed obvious.

"Like, that we made a mistake?" 

He had noticed something fading in her eyes earlier, like an unspoken question or a buried worry, but Andy didn't think too much about it. Their own, short honeymoon was still the only thing he wanted to think about - that and how incredibly  _happy_ April had looked at the wedding. That was one of the things that made Andy feel like he was doing something right by her, just seeing her beam up at him all night and through the morning, but now it was different. She was sitting in front of the sofa, curled up in a sweater and looking up at him with something else behind those gigantic doe eyes.

Andy wasn't ever great at doing anything other than being a dope, a gigantic walking joke, and he was okay with that. Usually he was fine by that, since it seemed to make April laugh. It seemed to make her smile, something that he felt blessed to see. Except now when he felt like April was anticipating him being something else. He wanted to be, but if she was still worrying over this then he didn't know what he could give her.

"No... do you?" Andy told her honestly, resting his hand on her shoulder. 

"I was just... I'm happy," she said like that was supposed to make sense, joining him on the couch.

"That's good, right?" Andy smiled briefly, turning to face her. "We're married and that's awesome, right?"

"It's gonna be the best, but don't you think... it's stupid," April shrugged and looked away from him.

"No way. You, stupid?" Andy laughed. "Seriously, what's up?"

"Maybe it was all too fast. God, this is so dumb," April still refused to look at him while she talked. "Even Leslie said we were moving too fast and I know what you said-"

"We did what makes us happy," Andy tried.

"And I am. I really, honestly am. Like, I've never felt this good before," April explained to the sofa cushions.

"I'm super confused, babe," Andy admitted finally, chuckling. "You think way more and way better than me... are you already thinking-"

"No, Andy. Don't ever think that," April quickly amended, looking up briefly before returning. "I don't want you to think about us not being _us_."

"So... what's the-"

"I can't stop thinking I'm gonna wake up one day and," April interrupted him quickly, "and this will all be a dream."

April started playing with one of the sleeves of her sweater. They'd talked, and through the mistakes both of them had made they let each other know what they were thinking just to be safe, but this was harder than the rest. This felt like Andy had no control. He just wanted April to stop but he knew she couldn't. Not that she didn't want to stop thinking like this, or that she enjoyed it, but Andy couldn't just wish her fears away. 

"That sucks," was all he could say. "I can't stop thinking about waking up with you."

April's eyes shot up, searching his face. Andy didn't know where that line came from but that's what he honestly felt. Throughout the honeymoon he couldn't stop thinking about April - whether it was on the lake watching her take tumbles, screaming at him, or in bed in the quiet nights with hands held tight - and nothing else seemed to matter. No matter what he'd said to anyone in the past, Andy had never felt like that in his life. Nothing, no one, made him want to work as hard as April did. 

Whatever that meant, whatever he had to work for, Andy didn't want to stop. He didn't want to stop because he would see April's smile just like then, small and understanding. Then she rolled her lips like she was considering something and when he saw her eyes refuse to meet his, he knew what to expect next. Without letting her break, because they both knew she didn't want him to see her like that, Andy pulled at her hands and she followed into his lap. Wrapping his arms around her, she intertwined their hands and pushed her head back into his shoulder. Andy left small kisses on her shoulder through the sweater, trying to figure out what he was supposed to say.

It didn't seem to be needed though. His words weren't needed, and Andy was always thankful that he didn't need to stumble over them, nor the fact that she was refusing to let him see her cry.

"I love you," she choked out, squeezing his hands tighter. 

"Love you too," he punctuated with a kiss along her neck that made April turn her head towards him over her shoulder.

"I know you mean it," April's lips hovered near his, her breath hot on his face. "I know you do."

"I'll always mean it, babe," Andy feathered his thumb along her knuckles. 

"Show me," she asked quietly.

Andy moved in immediately, taking her lips like he wanted nothing else. To be honest, there wasn't much else he wanted in the world other than April. With the cold lake air shuddering around them, Andy savoring the trembling movement of her hand to his face and her unrelenting, Andy remembered what else he desired soon. After she had broken off and her eyes were still red and scared, the miniscule parting of her lips into that surprised grin was it. 

"I know it's stupid-"

"It's not," Andy reprimanded instinctively.

"I never really knew... I didn't know what this was," she moved their hands still together to her chest. "I didn't understand it, y'know? It was scary, and weird, and I thought I could just avoid it."

He knew what she meant, because he felt the same way. Even if he had been nearly obsessing over her, it was still terrifying that he was willing to do it. Andy was just glad she hadn't ignored it like he was even more petrified she would have. Those first few weeks where she seemed totally ambivalent to him were worse than the loathing aimed at him. At least then he knew she at least saw him.

"I'm glad I didn't," April continued. "I'm sorry if-"

"I'm glad too," Andy nodded and April's lips turned up in response.

That was it, that was all that mattered. There was little else in the world than her smile.


	56. In Comfort Be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I'll be posting every day of next week even though I've got some ideas, so I thought I'd give y'all a heads up!
> 
> Sequel thing to "Her" if that idea/AU isn't your bag. Deals with themes of transitioning, referenced child abuse, and safety.

It's only been a week since April left home and stayed with Leslie. Only a week since, in the Parks offices where it was only the three of them, she told Leslie and Andy. Seven short days, April thinks, and she hates work more than ever. Every day, somehow, Ann is there and she gives April strange looks - odd, leering stares that make her more vulnerable than ever - and she tries to remember that she's safe.

_Safe._

That word doesn't mean much to her. The fresh bruises from before she left are slowly leaving her but they imprint more than she lets on. At Leslie's house she can barely see two feet in front of her, but the frantic pace the woman lives at means she's never really there, and April just drinks from the massive stores of hot chocolate.

Her parents don't know she's there, and she's especially thankful her father doesn't, but other people at work notice that they go in together. They notice, but they don't say anything. Ann knows, that realization having made April sick to her stomach, and she visited once to make sure she was eating and going in to continue her appointments in Eagleton. April does, but it's not because of Ann. It's because of the oafish guy waving at her from his stand in City Hall.

"Hey," Andy says loudly, waving her over to him before kissing her quickly, "are we still on for tonight?"

"Yeah, Leslie's gone for the night so we'll just hang out there," she responds. "We can watch TV, or burn all of those National Geographics, or..."

"But we're gonna make out a lot, right?" he asks, nodding his head and smiling.

"Totally," she smiles and walks off after a short hug.

She's never known someone as supportive as Andy has been. April, at first, didn't even expect him to  _understand_ what she was going through - and when she told him she thought he didn't really know what the word 'transwoman' meant - but he tries. He offers her a space in a house he doesn't even own, and he says he'll go sell his guitars so she can stay in a motel if that's what she wants, and it's important to her that he tries.

It's almost important that the hesitation she expects in his touch is never there. The few moments she feels comfortable going beyond small pecks on the lips are hard at first. They fall asleep together that first night he knows, both of them in Leslie's spare bed. At first he stays on the floor, out of some weird childish chivalry, but things are quieter without him up there.

 

* * *

 

"Andy," she whispered into the dark room, hoping he was awake. "Andy?"

"What's up," his voice is slow and hoarse like he just woke up.

She moved out from under the blanket, lying outstretched with her head closer to him at the opposite side of the bed. She let her hand fall down and find him in the dark. He quickly slipped his alongside, taking her hand, and she hoped that he wasn't rolling his eyes or squirming instinctively away from her.

"I'm scared," she admitted to him.

April breathed ragged after that and Andy only responded by continuing his thumb's motions on the back of her hand. He doesn't say anything to her after that, standing up, and he walked over to her. That night, she fell asleep with Andy. With their eyes used to the darkness, she on side of the bed and he the opposite and facing her, April watched him fight back sleep until she herself drifted off - her hand still in his.

 

* * *

 

April knows that she's blessed to have found Leslie, or rather that Leslie was just as good a person April hoped she would have been, and she's happy to be around Andy more. His jokes, all of them so terrible, get her to laugh more at him than anything else. He falls  _a lot_ more than she ever thought possible, but he has no shame or embarrassment about it at all.

To not be terrified of living in her own house, it's something April hasn't known before and with Leslie she never feels that.

"I  _have_  to go to this public forum, April. It's only an hour, two at most, then I'll be back," Leslie tells her slowly, putting on her jacket. "So if you need anything, you can call me or Andy."

"Thanks," April answers, standing up awkwardly and unsure.

"You can even call Ann-"

"Ew, no," April grimaces but lets it fall quickly. "But really, thanks Leslie. For everything."

"Oh, don't-" Leslie starts but doesn't get far.

April walks forward and gives her a brief hug before moving away like her hands stung from being so close. Leslie has to walk away because she's stammering and April swears there are tears in the other woman's eyes, but neither of them are going to bring that up. April's left alone then, alone with nothing but her thoughts. Thankfully she can feel calm in those thoughts, have a little more comfort, and it's a beautiful feeling.

When she thinks about the nights she sat in her room, terrified her dad would ask her to come into his room, there's always Andy there. In seven days she remembers those nights - living nightmares - twice, though she's tried to obliterate them from her memory, and both times he's there when she calls him, shaking.

 

* * *

 

_Ringing._

Three times, and her heart beat so fast with each successive tone April thought she might pass out. Every inch of the room she was in feels too small, and everywhere she managed to walk made her body feel too large for its confines. Then, when she wants to scream, the tones end.

"What's up!" he answered excited, and his voice brought her back to metered breaths. "April? You there?"

"Yeah... I just," she stopped, savoring the oxygen, "I really just wanted to hear your voice."

"You okay?" and he sounded more serious than just moments before.

"Can you make it here tonight?" she asked him.

"Still at Leslie's right?"

"Yeah, just-"

"Gimme ten minutes," and he hung up on her.

"Thank you," April ended up saying to the dead call.

 

* * *

 

April woke up with a start, her chest ready to burst. The dream - that same one - and she scrambled for her phone. She remembered what it felt like to come home after the second appointment, right before the hormonal treatment, and seeing her father staring at her like she had committed murder. She remembered what that first beating was like.

It was well past a reasonable hour, and she swore that he was playing a show, but she can't help calling him again. He doesn't answer her the first time, or the second, or the seventh. By the time there are eight missed calls on his phone April assumed that he lost his phone or was calling her parents and telling her exactly where she was. He was betraying her, just like-

And then, her phone vibrates loudly.

"Andy?" she had been close to hyperventilating and his name came out in a harsh rush.

She's answered by the sounds of people shouting. Silence from him. At least, that's what she recalled hearing but apparently Andy had been saying something to her.

"-be there soon, don't worry," he yelled over the sounds of other people in the background.

When Leslie's doorbell rang loudly an hour later, April bolted for the door. Andy's hands are different from her nightmare. They're calloused and rough, yes, but their intentions are different. He's soft, and he held her close. Leslie had apparently just gotten to sleep, and was obviously agitated, but she said something about catching up on next month's licensing waitlist and left them alone.

He doesn't leave her that night, and he makes it clear that he's not letting her do this alone.


	57. Be Comfortable, Creature

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by a reviewer on FFN and anonymously on tumblr as "Andy has to fulfill his wedding vows about protecting April." I've gotten this request a couple times and, although I'm always hesitant to do continuities and extend one-shots, I think this works really well within the "Her" timeline I've set up. 
> 
> So it's not technically his vows _yet_ but the idea's the same. Has themes of transphobic characters and child abuse, so remember that.

Normally the glittery night's sky would be the first sign for April to go back inside, but she didn't mind the stars so much when she was more focused on the other person outside Leslie's house with her. In Andy's lap she didn't pay much attention to the stars, not when he was busy touching her hair and turning her around in his lap to kiss him, and she wasn't that annoyed by the fresh air when it had the tinge of an air freshener. In a dim light she'd normally feel more comfortable around people but it wasn't like that with Andy - she didn't feel the need to hide from him. Something about that was comforting.

"Thank you," April said, her face hovering inches away from him. 

"For what?" Andy asked, his mouth barely twitching. "Today? If I wasn't here it would have been Leslie or anyone..."

"No, not today. I mean, yeah, but more like..." April looked away from him briefly, unsure how to word it without making herself bare. "I mean, like, for everything."

"I guess I _do_ give pretty good piggyback rides," he admitted and April gave him a shy smile.

"You know what I mean," she whispered, afraid someone else would somehow hear it.

If there was one thing April liked about being around Andy, it was never being afraid. Though she had doubts at first that he was going to be different, those were long gone, and she never felt in fear that he would discover what he already knew. In the myriad ways she knew people could overreact, none of them even so much as occurred to Andy and even if they did he hid them so well April only felt safe around him.

 

* * *

 

Andy knew something was wrong when April looked at her phone and she visibly shrank back. He didn't know someone so outwardly aloof could be hiding so much, but when Andy thought about it things started to make a lot more sense, and when things like her posture changed, curling inward almost defensively, he knew pretty well something was bothering her. If he hated anything, and Andy couldn't really think of much he ever disliked other than Mark but that was stupid anyways, it was watching April glance over at him and refuse to say anything. 

This side of April made him uncomfortable. Not because he didn't know what to do about it, or that he even wanted to change anything about her, but because he didn't like how natural and easy it seemed to be for her to sink back into. When she was laughing occasionally and smiling every once and a while, apparently not worrying, Andy had a vague happiness he didn't really understand or remember ever feeling from anyone else. Sitting on the couch in Leslie's house while Andy  April tapped the back of her phone and stared at it with wide eyes like a hand would reach out from the screen and drag her inside.

"Everything okay?" Andy asked, moving closer to April. 

"Yeah," she mumbled. "Everything's fine."

Despite her words, April had moved closer to Andy and shrugged his arm over her shoulder while still staring at the phone. They were waiting on Leslie to get home so they could make one of those little gingerbread houses that Andy loved making and then immediately eating the entirety of himself. April made an offhand remark one day about never making one before, and never really wanting to, but between Andy and Leslie there was no way that would stand. The moment she said that Andy was incredulous and demanding they do one the very next day.

"Shit," she said under her breath moments later. "No, no."

"Did Leslie forget those little gingerbread guys? Oh man, you gotta have people to live in the house," Andy groaned and tapped April's shoulder absentmindedly in frustration. "That's-"

"No, Andy. I think my parents figured out I'm not coming home," her voice wobbled in a way Andy wouldn't have ever expected. 

"So? No one's gonna tell them where you are," Andy tried to soothe her, but that didn't seem to be working judging by her rapid breathing.

"I changed the address at my last appointment," she explained, eyebrows furrowed. "I forgot to do it after I took my dad's card off the bill. He probably got the charge and the bill, and now-"

"Hey, calm down," Andy interrupted when she seemed to be melting over. 

"How can I calm down, Andy?" she turned to give him a bewildered, frantic expression. "They know where I am now. He knows where I am."

"So?"

"So, he'll know I'm still... y'know, and with you, and he's gonna..." her words fell aside when another alert made her eyes widen further.

"When he's gonna what? What do you think he's gonna do?" Andy asked, worried at her sudden silence. "You're twenty-one. It's not like he owns you or something."

"He says he's coming to pick me up," she barely managed to say. "My dad's picking me up."

April didn't move from her position, stuck to Andy, for another minute or so and when she did it was only to rest her head on his shoulder instead of lean forward to stare at the screen. For some reason she seemed hesitant to say anything else to him and instead refused to move away from him or even let him stand up. When he tried to she only tugged at his sleeve, forcing him to stay. Andy wasn't intending to leave, but April's insistence meant that he wasn't going to move if that's what she needed.

She didn't say much when someone pulled up into the drive. April didn't react at all to the sounds of someone stepping out of the car, but when it was Leslie she let out a breath that Andy swore had been held for at least a minute. Explaining the situation to Leslie, she said much the same things as Andy but April still seemed convinced that she was going to have to leave. No matter what either of them said, she wouldn't be swayed.

Then, after an hour of silently rubbing April's arm and trying to figure out a way to make it clear she didn't have to do anything she didn't want to, Andy looked out the window to see an unfamiliar car drive by and pull up. An unfamiliar man walked to the front door and rang the bell. April tensed in Andy's arms and when he stood up she pulled away and fell back much like when she got the first text. She looked so tiny with her legs curled up on the couch, so wary of the visitor, that Andy had a brief flash of anger at whatever enemy - invisible or the man at the door - she was tangling with.

Andy's hand stopped at the doorknob for a moment. Looking back, April was staring at the door like a dam was about to smash and let floodwaters rush in the house. He smiled at her, but April didn't seem to notice, and in one quick motion opened the door and stepped out, closing it behind him. Outside of the house and in front of him was a short man who, if Andy didn't know better, would have been a kind-looking, pot-bellied little man save for his face contorted in anger.

"I know he's in there," the man said brusquely, pointing at the door. 

"Who?" Andy asked, a little agitated at the man's choice of words.

"Don't play stupid," he laughed, trying to move past Andy and through the door. "Though from what I've heard it's not really playing at stupid."

"Sorry, there's nobody here other than me, Leslie, and April," Andy said, stressing her name loudly for her dad to hear.

"Oh, so he's got you on that kick too?" again he tried to force entrance but Andy stood in the much smaller man's way.

Even if Andy was able to keep him out as long as either of their energy went, he couldn't stop April opening the door behind him and stepping outside. When Andy put his arm over her shoulder, intending to keep her close, she was shaking just standing there and didn't seem to want to look up at her father. The bruises had horrified Andy, that someone could do something like that to their own kid was completely out of Andy's sphere of understanding not to mention everything else she said he had done - the physical abuse had only made her retreat further and further inward until she had become who she liked to pretend to be.

Now, Andy relished the fact that April didn't seem to move. 

"I'm... I don't want to go," she said to the welcome mat at her feet.

"Then who'll pay for your bills?" her dad presented, pointing at her. "I know you used those loans for that bullshit and not college." 

"I'm still not going," April repeated, her voice so shaky and her shoulders tensing up even as Andy slowly massaged her with his hand.

"Come on," he insisted, his hand reaching for April's wrist and pulling hard.

April resisted and it only made her dad try harder, nearly yanking her out from under Andy's arm. Andy watched the struggle for a second before he stepped forward instinctively to stand between the two of them. Looking down at the man, Andy couldn't figure out what was making him try so hard to refuse everything that April wanted right then. This was his kid, his daughter, and he seemed just as fine with dislocating her shoulder as he was to fume at Andy.

Andy didn't really like when he even played around rough with people, let alone hurting them. It wasn't that he didn't like messing around with his friends, his brothers, or occasionally April but when things got out of hand it always reminded Andy that he was much bigger than most people that weren't his brothers. But something was different here, something he didn't quite understand, and if he saw the dainty man make another aggressive move at her Andy didn't know what he was going to do, only that that he wouldn't hesitate.

"He's not staying here," the small man shouted. "He needs us. He can't pay for everything on his own."

"April's staying here," Andy returned, grabbing April's hand and lacing his fingers through them. "She's better off without you, anyways. People actually care about her here."

"You have to stop saying that," her father was visibly shaken by something Andy said. 

"What? That she's your daughter?" a new voice spoke up, Leslie standing behind the confrontation.

"Yes, that," he gestured at April.

Andy mistook that as another move and took another step at him, forcing the man back off the step and onto the walkway leading from the driveway. Without taking his hand out of April's, Andy continued walking the man backward towards his car. 

"Don't come back, man," Andy suggested, unsure if his voice was threatening or just plain goofy. "She doesn't want you around. You don't deserve a kid, anyways, the way you treat 'em."

Turning back to look at April, she still wasn't looking at her father but had lessened her incredible grip on his hand, Andy gave her the most reassuring smile he could muster before returning to the offender. 

"Whatever, it's not even my son anymore," he waved the two of them off, huffing as he went back to the driver's seat. "It's just a useless waste."

"I'm not an 'it,'" April whispered to Andy. 

When the car drove off, Andy turned around and looked at April. She was still staring down at their hands, reluctant to make another move after that. Andy tipped her chin up and immediately wondered how childishly romantic a gesture that was, and since it  _was_ April he could only assume she would hate it, but she gave him a short movement of her lips.

"You're April," he assured her. 

"Yeah, I am," she responded before leaning up on her toes to kiss him.

 

* * *

 

 

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Andy told her.

"For everything," she found the will to finally say quietly. "I... thanks."

April didn't want to let go of his cheek, cupping his face perpetually in the hopes that she could find the strength to tell him what she really wanted to. No matter what had happened, no matter who he said he was or had even proved he was, April still had a nagging worry about those three words. They could really spell doom for the two of them and April was too used to feeling Andy's hands move along her back and hold her closer.

"Hey April?" he broke her thoughts with those whispered words.

"What's up?" she asked, wondering why she hadn't just told him.

"Wanna finish that gingerbread house?" he offered, grinning.

"Totally," she answered, standing up with him and trying to maintain his sprint back inside Leslie's house. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to take a break for the rest of the week, save Friday, partly to spend some time with my family and also to work on some potential ideas for an AU that I've been sitting on since forever.


	58. And If I Am Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually taken from my original ending for ch.24 and combined with a scene that was running in my head all day yesterday. On Monday things will resume schedule and we'll be back to your regular April/Andy programming!
> 
> Enjoy.

Everything in April's head was that dream and all the agony she felt there suddenly real. Her eyes were hard to open in the early morning, the slightly cold air in the bedroom alleviated by covers and Andy's furnace of a body, but she looked over and saw that he was definitely there. Reaching over to his side of the bed April rubbed his shoulder and half expected him to vanish. When he only grunted she breathed a sigh of strange relief. 

Closing the slight distance between them, April hiked her knees up around Andy's leg and nestled her head into the sweaty arm she grabbed. That felt more comfortable and real than anything she had dreamed. Still, something was on her mind. Something from the dream - nightmare, really - was bothering her return to sleep. 

"Andy," she whispered. 

He responded with a snore and an attempt at rolling on his side, which only brought April to his back. Digging her hands into his sides, she tried a different tactic.

"Wake up Andy," April tried again, clawing into the pleasant squish of his sides.

"Ow!" he yelped suddenly, turning around with a distant expression.

Instead of saying anything or going back to sleep, Andy shot his hands under her shirt and tried of all things to tickle her. Sadly, with him close and nuzzling her neck in concert with his hands, it was working and before long April was choking out laughter. Rolling in bed, April tried to stop the squeal that inevitably came out of her mouth but with Andy's beard scratching all along her neck it was a lot easier said than done. Eventually Andy dragged her by the waist to straddle him and left her with a self-satisfied smirk. Somehow Champion remained asleep on his pillow on the floor, ignoring the two of them and their early morning.

"Morning," he slurred, his hands still on her hips. 

"Hey," April answered, trying to remember why she was waking him up. "I wanna talk."

"Isn't it super early...? What's up?" Andy asked with that dumb, barely conscious grin on his face. "We could just do it."

"That's a pretty good offer but this is kinda serious," April said before she leaned down and left him a brief kiss on the lips.

"Oh, okay," Andy shook his head and clearly tried to wake himself up a bit more. "All right, I'm game."

"Cool," April refused to leave her current spot, especially with Andy's hands idly moving along her lower back. "Um, I had this dream and it was dumb but... you know I love you right?"

"Uh, yeah," he told her like that was one of the dumbest things he'd ever heard her say. "I think you can tell I love you too."

"Shut up," April teased with an eye roll and a playful smack to his chest. "Andy, I don't like talking about this stuff. Don't make me ask you again!"

"All right, all right I know, okay? I love you too, babe," Andy smiled and pulled her back down to lie across him. 

"I know you do, but I wanna make sure you know," she mumbled into him. 

It was impossible for her to really say it in the way she wanted, but April was going to try anyways. That dream would probably haunt her for most of the day and she didn't want to leave the house without him knowing all the things she was terrified he didn't know or believe. 

"I do... are you okay?" Andy looked down and April met his eyes.

"Yeah, I'm fine," April rested her chin on his chest and continued, "but I'm just..."

"If you don't wanna say it you don't have to," Andy assured her, bringing his hands to her shoulders. "We don't need to talk about stupid emotional stuff if you don't want, babe."

"Andy, you know you're important to me right?" she said quietly, marking his chest with imprints of her nails that left squiggly trails of paleness before returning to the slightly darker skin tone. "Not like that I love you, because I do, but... ugh, this  _is_ stupid."

Andy laughed but when April looked at him, and she knew that he would know that stare with the tightly pursed lips and searching eyes, he stopped and reconsidered her words. She couldn't deny that, despite how amazing and fun but somehow comforting and relaxed their life was, in some way Andy still saw her as mostly uncaring. It was a fun bit to play on for a while, it still was, but April didn't know if Andy truly knew that what she was saying was reality.

"So you're not messing around?" Andy asked seriously.

"No," she said quickly. "You know when I'm screwing around and when I'm being serious, dude."

"I know, I know!" he nodded before grinning and continuing. "I'm just super tired still and kinda, uh, distracted."

"Andy it was kind of a nightmare and it scared me," April suddenly switched, trying to get him to focus. "It scared me because I didn't know if you knew this stuff. Like, that I really super  _do_ love you or that you might think I'm disappointed in you or whatever."

"What?" Andy said incredulously.

"God, this is dumb... just know that I'm so happy with us and you're one of the only things that I actually care about," April got out in a breath. "Except y'know, a person and-"

Andy interrupted her with a kiss, breaking her words and train of thought simultaneously. After only a few, sadly short moments, Andy pulled them apart and held her face in his hands like she always did when April thought he wasn't paying enough attention to what she was saying. The returned gesture was, strangely, almost enough of a confirmation for her.

"I know you and if you didn't love me, you'd be gone. But you're here," Andy said, punctuating that by moving her back to sitting atop him. "You're here and, trust me, I know it."


	59. A Little Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I can say today is that this month may or may not be overloaded with short baby and holiday fluff. I've still got a handful of prompts to fill out but if you get any ideas about something you want me to write you can, as always, tell me on [tumblr](anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Enjoy :)

In a lot of ways, April didn't really understand how they got this far as just the two of them. Before that year she would have said they were perfectly happy together, just them, and that nothing would be better than living their practical joke of a life. Things were perfect because she didn't know. April didn't know she could even care so much about something that serious, or tiny, or  _adorable_.

Ugh. That's what she should have said just for thinking that.

But there wasn't so much disgust in her face or her mind when April looked over her shoulder and saw Andy walking behind with his eyes glued to the little human strapped to his chest. A kid, their kid, and somehow April hadn't run away the moment the thing left her body. Andy was playing with her hands that stuck out awkwardly, looking stiff and unable to move, and muttering gibberish to her. The day would be long, out to buy clothes and shoes and basically everything they'd put off to the last minute, and April didn't argue when Andy wanted to take their daughter.

"Babe, look at these shoes," Andy called out from one of the aisles she'd ignored. 

He was standing with a pair of miniscule baby shoes and staring at them with the biggest, dumbest grin he could muster. 

"Yep, those are definitely shoes," April tried to deflect any instinct her muscles had to force a smile. "Are they the right size?"

"They... are!" Andy looked at them intently and returned to looking down at his chest. "Roberta's gonna get new shoes, and they're so small and cute just like her."

"You gotta stop doing that Andy," April told him, flipping over a box in her hands and reading the materials and manufacturing information. 

"What? Telling her that she's the cutest baby girl in the universe? Because it's true," Andy said seriously. "Isn't it true? Yeah."

When she turned around again he was spouting out more of that inane baby talk that April normally couldn't stand, the shoes hanging around his neck just barely by the laces, and he had his hands cupped around her feet. Roberta gave that little squeal of a laugh and Andy followed suit with his uproarious shout, tickling her feet and making the baby grow louder and brighter with each laugh. 

April knew she had cracked a smile the moment her daughter laughed. She knew that staring at the two of them was the stuff that hopeless romantics wrote about their topic's future lives in terrible romantic comedies about awful people, and that they were inches away from falling into a Lifetime movie plot, but April couldn't find the ounce of will to care otherwise. Closing the distance between them, April found herself playing with her daughter's sensitive feet and tickling through the socks she wore. Some part of her expected a wailing cry to follow and April agitating her once again over something she thought was the right call.

"See? You can't hate her," Andy said when Roberta continued laughing and April couldn't help but smile widely. 

"Dude, I don't hate my own kid. It's a little weird, yeah," April finally stopped and the little scrunched up face pull back to the strange, even look only a young child has, "but I love her. I don't know why - she's loud, and she eats a lot, and she poops more than anyone ever-"

"At least you don't have to clean it up. You're still super bad with changing, babe," Andy interrupted, nodding and moving back up the aisle they were walking down to begin with. "Are those diapers good?"

"Yeah, she shouldn't get a rash from these," April threw them in a basket and continued on. "I'm serious Andy. Do you think I don't like having a kid?"

"That's not what I meant," Andy laughed, talking without facing her as they kept walking. "Still kinda surprised you agreed to... well, any of this."

It was a fair thought, April knew. She could barely believe she wanted anything that resulted in normalcy or what she had resisted not  _that_ long ago as some gross form of adulthood, but it was better than any weird adolescent misconception of what things would be. 

"All right, that's fair," she admitted what she was thinking.

"But you can't look at that face and find anything to hate, right?" Andy said, mimicking the words April herself had said when she first held little Roberta. 

"Yeah, it's impossible to do that," April shrugged despite Andy not looking at her and sped up to join them just ahead of her. 

They left the store only a few minutes later with diapers, shoes, and a small bundle of clothes in hand. In the car, April wasn't really focusing on the road that much. She was too busy wondering why the only thing she had in her mind from day to day was the little person in the backseat. It went against everything that April thought she was about. A little misanthropy thrown together with a dash of independence wasn't what made a child work. She knew that, and April didn't feel a begrudging willingness or even the need to vomit at the idea.

To be honest, she kind of liked the idea of it. Maybe not a white picket fence, a dog with four legs, and cookouts but it would definitely be a family - whatever that meant for them, or for their already nearly disastrous life - and April wanted it.


	60. Like Little Feet

At the lake house, in the early morning before any sunlight illuminated and the dew had yet to form, April woke up and left Andy in the bed to sleep. Cool air and the faint pitter patter of her feet on the floorboards were the only company in that hour, but April didn't mind it - Andy's sweatshirt feel nearly to her knees anyways and was plenty comfortable. Crossing her arms, April trudged out to the den and tried to make out the sofa in the dim light.

All throughout the night April had been racked with a host of dreams. Some of them were pleasant, one even looked weirdly far in the future, but a few nightmares interspersed with the rest had made sleep after that hard to come by. April couldn't even remember any of them but that vague, uncomfortable feeling was still there and she needed to be alone with those thoughts.

Sitting down on the couch, April pulled her legs up so that she could remain tightly curled around herself in the twilit room. One of those dreams in that far-flung timescape April dreaded thinking about was particularly haunting and almost more so than any nightmare. In it, despite the strange blurriness regular to her dreams, April could see a vivid picture of herself walking inside a house to find Andy holding a small bundle in his arms. This dream version of herself was smiling brightly, something she couldn't picture doing for anything, and for an instant April knew exactly what Andy was holding. It scared her. The thought - the thing -  _terrified_ April to the core.

Whether or not they actually did that, she couldn't get it out of her head. That's how she woke up in a blind panic, almost sweating as bad as Andy, and stepped out into the chilly Lake Michigan air. Even though she knew it would entirely be her decision and that April herself wouldn't ever be guilted into anything that life-altering, that wasn't it. The real fear of it was the  _consideration_ \- the horror of maybe, actually, thinking about it.

Getting off the couch, April opened the door to the cold breeze outside and stepped onto the wooden deck. Leaning her back against the house, arms still folded to compensate heat that her bare legs sorely missed in that chill, she tried to think of almost anything else. Work wasn't worth spending more than a moment considering and she didn't feel like thinking about much else. They were just married, and that was pretty cool, but knowing the two of them that wasn't going to be like everyone else's idealization or her own imagined eternal loneliness. It would be different. Strange, definitely, but it was likely to just be them. They were going to be just April and Andy - just the  _two_ of them. That's how it was supposed to be, and that's how it would work if it could work at all.

"Hey," a voice said to her, quiet and tired. 

April must have missed hearing him walk out and been so trapped in her thoughts that she ignored the sound of the door opening just to her right. Andy's tousled hair and pleasantly exhausted face greeted her. 

"Morning," April answered with a dull, even tone. 

"Why you up so early?" Andy asked, still leaning against the door with one hand before walking out.

"Thinking," April said tersely. 

"Oh, okay," he responded.

Standing awkwardly in the middle of the deck, Andy put his hands around his stomach. Because April had taken his sweater he was sitting out in the morning with only a pair of pajama pants and a thin shirt to ward off the cold. Since it was a good enough excuse to do so, April walked over to him and pushed away his arms and slipped hers around his waist. Resting her head against him, those thoughts - that future - returned and didn't seem so bad.

"What were you thinking about?" Andy asked a little hesitantly, maybe more than April would have liked.

"Stuff," she said in yet another simple deflection.

"Sure, sure," Andy gave in and she felt him nodding. "You wanna go inside? It's, like, super cold out here."

Looking up at him, Andy's face was searching her. Whether he asked her, and if she told him had he actually asked, it didn't matter. Something was digging deep into the back of her mind and refused to leave, almost like a houseguest with too many secrets to hide and a penchant for squatting. That dream - that little dream-baby in Andy's arms - was burrowing unwelcome but real. April hadn't ever thought about something this  _serious_ for this long, and so hard, in all of her life. Nothing felt as adult and gross, but real and possible, as that.

But maybe that would have to wait for another day, another day when the sun was actually in the sky and they weren't freezing against each other's skin, since April gave Andy a blank stare that he returned with that grin only he had. That same toothy, bright smile she didn't like thinking about because seeing it was so much better and so much more real than anything else April could muster up. April wondered if maybe, somehow, some of those things in her dream could come true. But that didn't last long, because the moment she felt the first drop of rain on her shoulder an overwhelming desire to get inside as quickly as possible took over.

"Yeah, let's go. It's starting to rain," April said matter-of-factly, keeping an arm around Andy as she opened the door.

She likely wouldn't tell him what she had been thinking for a very long time, if at all. Something about bringing it up scared April a little in the same way that her own thoughts on the matter were frightening, but that was for another day. That day, with the rain pouring down onto the deck and smashing against the glass of the windows, April wanted to go back to the covers with Andy and forget that she considered those things at all. 

The sounds of rain splashing in and smacking against every inch of the house followed them throughout the day, from the moment the clouds in the sky stoppered the rising sun to the break of night once again it kept coming. So they stayed in bed, every few minutes one of them rolling over and on top the other with a hungry gleam in their eyes. At first Andy still seemed worried about what April had been thinking, but after sleeping another hour and waking up to find April staring at him, waiting, the worry seemed to drop away.

Though they napped and slept in, lazy and awkward sex sprinkled throughout, the rain kept on. It was constant, and so was that sound - the sound of the rain moving against the house. When April went out to get a drink and something to eat for the two of them, she was reminded of the sounds she made walking along. The rain sounded familiar but something wasn't quite right. The water moved in droplets on the roof like little feet walked on carpet and wood.

April pretended she was thinking of her own footsteps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't say this enough: I love all y'all - all the readers - so much. Also I'm sure this whole back-to-back episodes thing next month (!) will only drive me further into a spiraling insanity!


	61. Cribs and Burritos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anon on tumblr requested more Ron interacting with A/A and since I got a sudden boost of "dear god April and Andy as parents is the most adorable thing ever" this happened. 
> 
> It took me that ask to realize that it's been a long, long while since we've seen him in this collection.

It's one in the morning when April hears someone knock on the door. She can barely move out of bed, and to be honest her legs don't want to bear her weight any longer than they have to, so she yells at Andy until he wakes up. As if expecting her to call on him at any hour, he immediately bolts up in bed and looks over at his very pregnant wife who's still very,  _very_ tired.

"Doorbell," she said through a yawn.

"Should I go check it?" Andy asked, confused.

"No, you should wait for them to ring again so I can get woken up  _again_ ," April refused to look at him, trying to squeeze her eyes into forced sleep. "You'll really love that. Go tell them there's a pregnant woman with a loaded handgun in here."

"Gotcha," Andy sped out of bed and through the house.

After a few moments of silence, she could hear Andy open the front door to yet more quiet. If April felt at all like doing anything, the kid that just did that would be in a living hell, but she just wanted to  _sleep_. That would be nice. Instead she hears Andy laughing and shouting at the front door followed by a loud grunt and incredibly heavy footsteps. April doesn't bother to get up, instead pretending it was all a dream and she didn't want to disembowel her husband for being even louder.

April would eventually get to the point of forgetting the physical hell of her pregnancy, or at least so Leslie and Ann had said. All she could think was how horrible a decision she had made and that she should have never allowed Andy to do this to her. Her body was just not cut out for all of this, but then again she remembered the tiny, balled up fists of the Knope-Wyatt triplets and how stupid they all looked. April imagined what it would be like to see little fingers and a squished face that she could say was  _her_ kid, and felt a little less totally infuriated with her life.

But then Andy rushes into the room and he's sweaty and out of breath. April turns over to look at him wiping at his forehead and she's more curious than angry.

"Babe, you're not gonna believe this," Andy said in an exasperated voice.

"What, you found a way to speed up this monster in me thing?" April deadpanned, her head now smashed into the pillow.

"No, I don't - I don't think so," Andy considered before hopping over to her side of the bed and getting down on his knees. "Someone left us a crib on the porch!"

"What?" April asked incredulously, like Andy was going to lie to her about something like that. "We already told everyone we were going to-"

"Buy one, yeah. It's weird, I went out there and only saw a truck drive super fast," Andy still looked incredibly excited. "They left this note, too."

Andy produced a piece of paper with a single, handwritten line on it:

_Crib; made of wood. Don't buy one._

Even if she didn't immediately recognize the handwriting in the dim light of the lone lamp in their room, April only knew one person that would drop a crib off on their front porch without so much as a word. And to tell them that the thing's made out of wood as if they wouldn't know that?

 

* * *

 

Andy went in with the note and left it on Ron's desk, standing there expectant. It didn't take long for the older man to groan and look around for any passersby that might witness whatever conversation the two of them may or may not have had.

"Ron," Andy started slowly, looking down like all he wanted to do was wait for Ron to leave his desk and catch him in a massive hug.

"No," he gave Andy a look of mixed aggravation and pleading.

"That was awesome of you," Andy said, "and I want to thank you but I don't know how. So, I tried to make you something too."

There was something like fear in Ron's eyes just then. Maybe because he expected a gift that would poison the entire department, or a concoction from April designed to make him relive the nightmare that was food poisoning, but still it wasn't fear. Ron Swanson didn't fear  _anything_ but if there was anything that put him on guard, it was definitely a gift from those two. Andy pulled up a brown bag he was carrying and set it on the desk. The bottom of the bag bulged and had grease stains all over it, and there was the pungent aroma of beef filling the office.

"I asked April to show me how to do this," Andy pointed at the bag, "because I figured it's like changing a diaper, but not really... and April sucks at it anyways."

Andy walked out silently with his hands in his pockets, leaving Ron to inspect the mystery gift. Opening it, he looked inside and felt a prickle of a smile fall on his face. Inside was an incredibly poorly wrapped burrito stuffed with whole cuts of steak popping out of the gigantic tortilla. Digging it out and silently berating himself for the attempt at a giggle that threatened to come out, Ron saw a piece of paper soaked in grease stuck to the bottom of the bag. Shaking his head to himself, he reached down and scraped the bit of paper off of the bag and unfolded it. It only had one line, in April's slanted handwriting:

_Burrito; made with steak. Eat it._

It was awful, the steak overcooked and still thick with crispy fat that did nothing to aid the horrible taste of the meat, and Ron had to put it down after two bites - even stopping out to get a bacon cheeseburger to satiate his lunch pain - but he got the point.


	62. The Perfect Gift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So begins the endless stream of Christmastime with the Ludgate-Dwyers.
> 
> (I have no idea how I'm still doing this.)

April was so awesome at giving gifts.

She must have picked it up from Leslie  or something like that Andy guessed, because she always seemed to know what to get him. Even when it wasn't for something like Christmas, she'd do things for him like crossing off his bucket list and not divorcing him for longer than a few hours at most. He tried to return the favor but most of the time he just couldn't figure that stuff out. Mostly because April never told him what she wanted and just shrugged, saying whatever was fine. At one point Andy tried being cute and saying all he wanted for Christmas was her, but she just looked at him like he had too many heads, so she kept being strangely thoughtful but nonchalant about it.

And with that, she kept expecting Andy to do nothing at all but that wouldn't stand. Especially not for Christmas, and he was starting to run out of time. No, Andy was going to figure out the perfect gift for April in less than a month.

 

* * *

 

"What do you think I should get her, Leslie?" Andy asked, already out of ideas. "She always tells me not to worry, and then she gets me super cool stuff."

"Like what?" Leslie said, curious despite her previous annoyance at his intrusion in her office.

"Well... uh, she got me the Reggie Wayne jersey," he explained, counting off his fingers. "That was a long time ago, but we went to the Grand Canyon and she paid for Xbox Live last month. So, she pretty much gets awesome presents for me all the time."

"So get her something like that, something that's really personal," Leslie suggested, flipping a page over in front of her and cracking a marker open. 

"Oh yeah, that's what I was thinking but what's personal to April? Like a dead raccoon? Or mud?" Andy stroked his chin and thought hard about it. "No, a dead raccoon coated in mud. That might be it."

"Maybe," Leslie nodded seriously. "As much as I would love to brainstorm gifts for April, I actually have a lot of work to do."

"Oh, that's okay. I'm sure I'll figure it out," Andy laughed and walked out.

In reality, he was still lost. Dead raccoon or no, he didn't even have the beginning of an idea for what to get April. He'd been sitting on the stuffed raccoon plan for about three days and it sounded perfect, but still not good enough. Maybe he'd have to get her twenty stuffed raccoons and clean out a spare room for them, but that might be too much. Then again, what else could Andy do? He sure as hell didn't know or he wouldn't be sitting outside of Leslie's office thinking so hard about it while April stared blankly at him with her eyebrows raised.

Walking past her, he lifted a finger like he was going to start saying something to Ron before the other man pressed his little keychain and left Andy staring at a closed door just outside his office.

"What's up?" April asked from behind him.

"Oh, nothing. Uh, nothing at all babe, just... um," Andy looked over for someone to make this an easier escape but there was no one else. "Well, I'm... you're so smart."

"Hm?" April had apparently given up paying attention to him, scraping something off of the little name plaque on her desk.

"Never mind," he said quickly, rushing out of the department with an oozing sweat running down his back.

 

* * *

 

Later, Andy called Leslie for an emergency meeting. Knowing exactly what he wanted, she brought a calendar and a notepad with her. When he asked what those were for, she pointed to the calendar and told him that was April's yearlong holidays calendar and the notepad had all of the leftover ideas Leslie had when she came up with the various gift ideas for her. They decided to settle all of this over lunch.

"Leslie, you're super good at giving gifts. I mean, you told me to rip off one of the legs of that stuffed dog and April keeps that thing everywhere," he bit into his sandwich and chewed furtively. "Maybe I should get her a little stuffed me-"

"All right, that might be creepy enough to work," Leslie admitted but sighed. "Look, I was going to give her a gift card for a free day at Spawnee. You should just take that and give it to her for Christmas."

"You sure? I mean, I don't think she's gonna want that Leslie," he couldn't see April doing anything other than terrorizing the employees and getting thrown out of the building.

"That's ridiculous, she'll love my gift. She always loves my gifts," Leslie looked taken back by Andy's claim.

"I bet she's gonna hate it, but that might be the point," Andy bunched up his eyebrows and squinted in concentration. "But you go ahead and give that to her. What else you got on that list?"

"Um... she asked me for a vial of calf's blood so I guess there's that option," she flipped a piece of paper and tapped it with her fingers. "And she's already got a Jerry voodoo doll so that one's off the list."

"Wait, I think... I think I got it!" Andy jumped up and immediately sprinted for the door, slipping and stumbling out of the diner in a hurry. 

 

* * *

 

April hated Christmas, more or less. People were excited and being  _merry_ when the only people that were allowed to be happy were her and Andy. Most of the time she liked walking around the neighborhood, tearing down lights and stringing up the yard decorations in compromising positions. Last year their neighbors knew exactly who to look for when their little Santa was waving jubilantly at the street with a festive garden gnome face first in his crotch.

It was so much better just because the Santa kept giggling and screaming  _Merry Christmas!_ to anyone that passed.

But Andy always made a big deal out of it and April didn't mind seeing him get so worked up in an effort to find the perfect gift for her every year. Usually he tried to get her to take off work for a few extra days, saying it would be like a second honeymoon only a lot colder and they'd stay inside all day and have sex on the couch. As tempting as that offer always seemed, she turned it down and accepted whatever song or new stuffed animal - taxidermy or not - he gave her. It was the thought that counted, or something stupid like that, she noted.

So when she woke up on Christmas morning she groaned to herself and walked out to the living room for Andy's usual present opening ritual of him tearing open everything whether it was for him or not. Instead, he was sitting upright on the couch with a small box in his hands. It was wrapped so poorly, looking like a square coated in garbage, and for some reason she started smiling.

"Merry Christmas!" he shouted, jumping to his feet when she sat down. 

"Yeah, sure," she grimaced, still tired. "Get started now and maybe we can go back to sleep before Leslie calls us."

"Well, I want you to open this," he presented her the weird little, badly wrapped present. 

"What is it?" she asked, pulling it apart to reveal a small flip case that she popped open. 

Inside of the little case was a pack of what looked like index cards. When she pulled those out they each had the same thing written on them in Andy's handwriting, some in pencil and a few in marker:

_Ludgate Coupon!_

"What's a Ludgate coupon?" she looked at the back of the card for anything else but came up blank. 

"You know how you always say stuff like we should go egg Jerry's house again and we need to make fun of Ann all the time?" Andy sat down, smiling. 

"Yeah, sure. You always laugh and then Leslie tells me I shouldn't," April agreed, "which is stupid because making fun of Ann is probably my third favorite thing to do."

"Well, there's a box of fifty coupons that, whenever you give someone in the office one, they have to do whatever you want to do," Andy wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

"Even murder?" April asked seriously, considering Andy's gift. "Double murder? Murder-suicide? How much murder can I get away with?"

"I think Leslie said that was one of the things you _can't_ do," Andy pulled her closer to him and kissed her. "Do you like it?"

"It's perfect," she said, giving him a brief smile. "Now, go open your stuff."

April watched him destroy several boxes and so much wrapping paper that she worried she might actually have to clean it up at some point. He screamed just like a little kid at the new video game, and when he opened Champion's bones he just looked at them confused before April explained they weren't for him. She turned one of the "Ludgate Coupons" around in her hand, the little case in the other, and wondered what the first one would be. She had a thousand ideas just then - the first was making Leslie take an emergency visit to Ann only for April to surprise her with a roadkill present - but one seemed way better than the rest.

"Andy, come here," she beckoned him with a curled finger. "I wanna spend my first Coupon."

"Cool, on what?" he inquired obliviously, standing up and only getting the idea when she gave him a wry smile and pulled him on top of her.

As it turned out, Andy was also pretty awesome at giving gifts.


	63. The Best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymously prompted as "new parents high five" based on [this gifset](http://notabadday.tumblr.com/post/103663624645/each-step-of-their-courtship-punctuated-with-a). I've said this already but if we don't get a high five at the end of the series because April reveals that she's pregnant I will be infinitely furious.

A month after the birth of their daughter, Andy started to realize there was something off about April. He expected her to give every single duty possible over to him, mostly because of the hell that pregnancy and childbirth had been for her, but that wasn't where it ended. Whenever Andy was holding Roberta, and he never wanted to put her down except when he knew she needed to sleep, April had a sad, sideways leer for the two of them and not much else.

He guessed that it had something to do with the fact that, after a few weeks, the baby refused to be fed by April. They'd sit down in the living room or the baby's room and April would have that singular smile that Andy thought was reserved only for him at first, but by after a few minutes all Andy could hear was a wailing cry and then April giving her over to him. She didn't talk for much of the day after that happened.

"Hey, April," he called her over to him in the middle of the living room as he paced.

"Hm?" she turned to him and he beckoned her with a tilt of his head. 

"Can you take her for a second?" he didn't give her time to answer, pushing the baby into April's instinctively cradling arms. "I gotta pee, so so bad."

"Sure," she mumbled, looking down at the wrapped up child with a hint of a grimace on her face.

When Andy came back into the living room, April was sitting down and gingerly bouncing Roberta in her arms, trying to keep some kind of movement. Their little girl hadn't yet started to cry, but Andy could see April physically preparing for it with her face held a little farther away than looked comfortable. 

Sitting down next to the two of them, April offered the baby to Andy who shook his head and gave her a grin. Instead of returning it, April just looked down at the baby again and maintained the gaze until her shoulders slumped a little and the crying started, Roberta apparently woken up by the minor change of rhythm. Andy didn't know what they were supposed to do about that, but watching his wife's face shift from disappointment to a wholly different emotion - lips pursed tight and looking away from anyone in the room - made him scoot closer to the two of them.

"Just keep up what you were doing before," he tried, putting his arm over April's shoulders and looking down at the baby. "She liked that."

"Yeah, and then I messed it up," April huffed, resuming her previous rocking but only soliciting more whining. "See? I screwed up."

"Nah, she's just-"

"Andy, we screwed up," April interrupted, her eyes wild when she looked up to him. "I knew it the whole time, but I didn't want to say it."

"Whaddya mean, we screwed up?" Andy laughed, playing with Roberta's free hands, tiny little things, in his finger. 

"I mean, I don't think I can do this," her arms kept going at the slight rocking but the crying continued. "God, I'm not cut out to be a mother, Andy. You won't be a bad dad, but I can't do it-"

"What? That's nuts!" Andy interjected, confused by how frightened she suddenly seemed. "You're the best mom."

"Andy, I can't even feed my own baby," she looked back down and Andy knew the look on her face right before she looked away - too much blinking, no eye contact, mouth half open. "I can't do it, I shouldn't have done this. I can't-"

"Listen to me," Andy gripped her shoulder with his hand still over her. "We can do this - you can do this. I know how excited you were, and you can't lie about that. You were so pumped, at least until the baby started growing and then you were just super angry-"

"Andy, I can't," she shuddered, looking back up to him. "I don't think I can do it."

He was about to respond to her insane claims, but then he realized something was different about the room. Looking down at the bundle in April's arms, there was no crying or whining - just a sleeping child. April looked down as well, but she didn't seem nearly as impressed as he was. April seemed like she knew the exact reason for the sudden nap and Andy assumed she was still unsure of herself.

"She just misses her mom's voice," Andy grinned.

"No, it's because you're here," April retorted, refusing to believe any of this was her doing. 

"Let's put her to bed, okay?" he suggested, standing up with the two of them and leading April into the spare room turned nursery. 

That same, blue disappointment was in April's eyes even when they laid their little sleeping girl in the crib. She crossed her arms and stared down inside, a kind of thoughtful blankness on her face until Andy brought them closer with his arm. She looked up to him for a moment before laying her head on his shoulder. 

"You can do it," Andy reassured her. 

"You really think?" April whispered, accepting his massaging arm on her tired shoulder.

"Totally," Andy said without hesitation, turning April to look at him directly.

"What makes you so sure?" she asked, looking up at him and glancing down at Roberta for a second before returning to him.

"Because you're the best person ever, and you trust me with stuff, and I believe in you," Andy continued to smile at her, letting go of her hands for a moment. "April, you're gonna be the best mom in the world. Probably the universe."

"I love you," April said, a meek happiness on her face that Andy knew as her begrudging acceptance of his support. 

"Yeah, love you too," he raised a hand in the air like it was the most natural thing in the world, and April immediately high-fived it.

She lingered on his hand, her fingers eventually lacing in his. They stayed rooted on the spot, April eventually turning to look down into the crib. For the first time in a few weeks, April gave a brief flitter of her lips, curving upwards at the little figure still quietly asleep with her hand in mouth. Andy was going to guide April out of the room but that task was going to be impossible, her hands glued to the side of the crib. 

Andy left the room, expecting April to come out not long after. She stayed in there for a few more hours, and when the baby woke up Andy only heard his wife speak to their daughter. It was mostly nonsense and her venting, but the initial crying stopped and April continued to talk for a long while. 


	64. Eventually

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How about the first time some of the Parks Department meets the new addition to the Ludgate-Dwyer family?
> 
> I wasn't kidding when I said this month was going to be constant kid-fic. Also, I broke my pinky a few days ago so if you get some late, relatively short fics it's because I lose a lot of speed without my right hand and can't devote endless hours this week on writing :(

It was a pretty regular day in the Parks department - a grating intern asks April if she needs help with something and, just coming back from a maternity leave that was technically a month too long, she groans and wants to drive an ice pick into his head. Sadly, all she can do is him to go away and leave her alone so that April can get back to appreciating Leslie's old office and its blinds. Leaning back into her own office chair, April tries her best to fall asleep in the middle of the day.

Yet again, an interruption in the form of a text alert drives her further from a nap. It's Andy, and he's meeting her for lunch. Something she'd forgotten about in the mess of work, something she'll never admit she's putting more than twenty percent of an effort into, but she gets up slowly from the chair in an effort to meet Andy just outside.

He arrives with that silly chest strap he insisted on weeks ago, carrying Roberta in the sling and walking proudly into the department.

"Hey babe," he says to her cheerily, kissing her on the cheek, "you ready?"

"Yeah, just let me get-" April starts but she's cut off when she sees the person standing in front of the permits counter, a seemingly important binder forgotten on it.

Leslie walks forward with one of those grins that's ready to split her face in half, her eyes alight at Andy and the baby. It wasn't that April was hiding the kid or anything, but Leslie had been so insanely busy the previous two months that any chance to even sit down with the three of them wasn't possible. If it was anyone else, April's sure that Leslie would have dropped dead from exhaustion weeks ago.

When she steps in front of Andy, Leslie's still got that irritatingly infectious smile on that April doesn't want anything to do with.

"She's-"

"Adorable, right?" Andy says with a smirk, nodding and unstrapping Roberta for Leslie to hold her.

"She's beautiful, just like her incredible, hard-working mother," Leslie turns to April and her face is still bright with joy at meeting the new member of their family.

"No, stop," April tries but can't keep her lips straight for long watching Leslie staring in awe. "She's way cuter than I ever was."

"So, this must be her," a gruff voice says, Ron stepping out of his office.

Andy beams up at Ron like he's going to explode into an impossible amount of joy, ecstatic at the older man's well-hidden smile. It was so secret that it never made its way on his face, but April knew that look - the slight upward brush of his moustache - and knew what it meant. Leslie hands her off to Ron, who despite his best efforts looks like he'll finally reveal that grin to everyone in the office. Before he can, however, something that sounds eerily like that nonsensical baby gibberish comes out of his mouth and he looks up suddenly.

Ron stares at them like an animal caught out by headlights, as if he never said anything at all.

"Yes, that is indeed a baby," he coughs, returning her to Andy. "She's... well done, you two."

He awkwardly pats Andy on the shoulder before doing a double-take at his door and stalking off to his desk. Leslie still fawned over the baby even as Andy stood there and gave April a look like they needed to get out of there. Something about watching Leslie, a mother of three, still aglow and bubbly over a child was making her obscenely happy in a way April hadn't anticipated before. It was kind of like the feeling that you had actually achieved something, like an actual accomplishment that April could be proud of.

A really smelly, tiny, loud accomplishment that was going to make them even more broke, but it was still pretty great.

"Oh, has Donna seen her?" Leslie says quickly, all that energy April had come to love and respect bowling over in that moment.

"She's seen pictures, but she said she won't ever be holding her," April explains, nodding along with an understanding Leslie before finding her perfect out. "But, she's out for lunch and that's actually where we were just going, so..."

"Oh, I'll let you two go... or you  _three_ I should say," Leslie corrects herself and gives the now laughing baby a squeeze of her small, weirdly shriveled hands. "Just remember to actually get someone to file these, because last time I sent any records down here they just ended up on the fourth floor next to a homeless man."

"Got it - set them on fire, then scatter the ashes in one of the Great Lakes," April nods, taking Andy's arm and guiding him out and away from Leslie before she could say anything to April. "We're gonna go to Tom's place and, uh, yeah."

They're definitely not going to miss the deals that Tom drunkenly gave them in writing, after April demanded a contractual agreement, for free meals.They have to get to lunch or April might actually send someone to pick up those records and  _actually_ do their job. She predicts that, within five years, she'll be department head and succeed where Ron failed in creating a perfectly ineffective governmental body. In addition to the whole raising a child thing, April likes where she sees her life going from there.

 


	65. In the Early Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A proper bit of snow angel fluff.

Winter wasn't so bad in Pawnee, save for the unbearably cold mornings and the occasional wind chill so bad that Andy's beard froze on his face, but April usually only dealt with those winters by staying in and ignoring the stupid snow. Now, with Andy, he wanted to _do_ things. Like, actually going outside and doing stuff that wasn't walking to the next warm building where they could fall asleep bunched up together until a waitress kicked them out. If he was anyone else, April would have given up altogether. _  
_

But for reasons April probably wouldn't ever be able to figure out herself she had fallen in love with someone that, at that moment, decided the best thing to do at five in the morning in the middle of December was to go outside and make snow angels.

"You only own sweatpants and cargo shorts," April scoffed.

"So?" Andy looked confused, picking out two pairs of sweatpants and throwing one to her. "Here's your snowpants."

"Why the hell did you wake me up for this?" she shook her head but slipped the overly large sweats on anyways.

"It's almost Christmas and we haven't even made snow angels  _once_!" he shouted, and somewhere Ben was likely groaning in agony at this new interruption.

"Because this weather is dumb, and it's way too early," she grimaced, throwing on a coat and a pair of Andy's boots. "Besides, snow angels are stupid."

Andy tilted his head in silent disappointment, walking out ahead of April with one glove and a thin hat on. April was just going to stand there and watch him flail his arms in the laying snow, then she could go back to sleep and enjoy her weekend. It didn't help that she was still a little drunk from the night before, and when the cold air hits her face she feels that vague dullness in her head even more. Thankfully everything's still fairly cloudy, the sun refusing to rise yet, and Andy immediately becomes more vibrant.

He dashes across the small yard and flops down in a pile of snow, a fluffy haze shooting up and falling back down on him. Again, April's thankful it's dark because he's got the biggest, dumbest grin on his face, shouting for her to join him, and she just might be smiling too. Probably not, though.

Shivering, April crosses her arms and stands a little closer to watch him. Andy does that strange, lying down jumping jack motion until he's sufficiently coated in snow and there's a shape around him that kind of looks like a gigantic winged bell. 

"Are you d-done?" she asked, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. "It's f-freezing, dude."

"What? I only made one!" he shouted, likely waking at least one neighbor. "C'mon, babe, you'll love it!"

"No thanks, I'll just stand here," April shrugged her shoulders up, trying to ward off all the shaking cold. 

"It'll be super fun," he crooned from the yard, rolling over to a fresh patch of snow to start a second angel. 

"You look like you're having fun for the both of us," April hugged herself harder, tapping her feet impatiently with Andy still rolling around in the snow.

He definitely looked like he was having enough fun for the two of them. His nose was bright red and he probably had a ton of powdery snow in his pants and boots, but he was lying down with his eyes closed and big grin on his face. April felt like she was supposed to hate that his giant, lovable puppydog face and smile made her lips move of their own accord to match his, but she really couldn't. She just couldn't find the will to do anything other than slowly walk towards him on the ground.

There wasn't much space for another one where Andy was lying down, but when April walked over in the crunchy powder he laughed and stuck out his hand for her. Taking it, she let him pull her down onto the ground and roll the both of them onto a thin patch nearer the house. April hesitantly let her arms out, Andy with his arms around her waist and letting his legs do the sweeping motion of the angel's robes, and flapped them around until she felt even dumber than she had for waking up.

She felt like an idiot but Andy was definitely smiling and laughing, and he was holding her so close while they made their combined snow angel, that it just seemed like the right thing to do. Eventually they stopped and when Andy pulled her up with him, they took one look at the monstrosity they'd created and April chuckled when his face split into another massive smile. The wings were tiny little things in comparison to the head and legs, like a deformed little Tinker Bell.

"That looks terrible," Andy laughed, his arm still around her. 

"It's the worst," she agreed, before the shivers took over again. "Hey can we go inside? It's still super cold."

"I knew you'd love it," Andy said as they walked inside and kicked a veritable mountain of snow out of his boots and onto the foyer floor.

April didn't answer him, instead leaning up on her toes to give him a very light kiss. Taking that response in stride, Andy let that weird, almost coy curve of his lips turn into a lingering on hers until he was almost bent over her. Together, they got rid of the snow and the makeshift winter gear, finding their way to a hot shower in the early December morning, the misshapen snow angels outside a pretty good idea now that April thought about it.


	66. Crossing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously, based on a headcanon I have that April and Andy have two girls (though I'm torn between this and just one kid, if any) and he's totally okay with not having a son because he's proud of his girls.

Andy figured that he should finally get around to cleaning up the spare room in preparation for the new baby. Even if April hadn't just given birth the second time there was no way she would be the one cleaning it up, and to be honest he was a little surprised he was going to be doing it at all. Some of Ben's lessons must have stuck, because on that sleepy Sunday morning that's all he felt like doing. Inside, boxes stacked up from wall to wall, he smiled to himself at all the memories there.

It was where Burly first let him stay, on a futon, and where he spent a lot of those first few weeks with April. Then when Ben moved in he took it over, and Andy genuinely missed hanging out with him and Leslie as much as they used to, but everyone's lives were moving in awesome directions so he couldn't complain. When Roberta was born it transformed into her nursery, then her room, and she was willing to give up her old room for the new baby. Andy didn't know if it would be weird or awesome when she came for the birth, but when their second girl came and April looked worn and mildly excited with Roberta standing there and demanding to hold her it was pretty  _awesome_.

Walking over to one of the boxes, Andy started mindlessly walking them out into the living room where he'd figure out what to do with them eventually. With Roberta "eventually" had been about two years, so there wasn't much of a rush. After two boxes, boredom started to set in and Andy sat down on the couch to look through one of them. He didn't even know they had this much crap, but after so many years things must have just started to pile up.

The first thing he took out was a scrapbook Leslie sat down and made one day, taking all of the pictures they had and compiling those for them to have. It was probably the best Other Couple's Anniversary present Leslie had ever given them, except for maybe the waffle iron. That was pretty cool.

There was the first picture of April with the baby at work, something she'd gotten weirdly in the habit of doing, and the one where Roberta and Andy stuffed their faces in the birthday cake on her sixth. They didn't really look at those pictures that often, mostly because April didn't like thinking about that stuff as the past. It was strange, but when she explained to him that she liked thinking about and building new memories rather than dwelling on all the old ones made more sense to him.

Picking up an old shoebox, Andy opened it curiously. Why would he keep this? Then again, he was pretty sure they had six or seven pizza boxes scattered around the house at all times no matter the day so a shoebox wasn't the oddest discovery. Inside though, there was a pile of guitar picks, a pack of strings, a battery, and a crumpled pile of yellow paper. Unfolding it, Andy laughed when he read:

_Andy's Bucket List_

He had honestly forgotten about it, again. Every few years he'd rediscover it and read it, laugh at some of the things and ask April if they could do some of the others. Scanning down it, one caught his eye - a little remark about teaching his son how to throw the perfect spiral. 

Of all the things that he wouldn't regret changing, this one that had been such a priority wasn't even a remote care anymore. Not after seeing Roberta's face at the acceptance email, the letter, and her insistence that she's gonna work her ass off in school. Not after April's actual, tangible excitement that they were going to have another kid, and definitely not when he held Sam that first time. It was like experiencing everything all over again, for the first time, and just like with their first he never wanted to put her down for anything at all. 

Nothing was as important to him as his girls, and honestly he wouldn't replace anything in his life for that. So what if he didn't have a son?

"What're you doing?" April's tired voice broke his thoughts. 

In response, Andy turned to look at her. He was right all those years ago to laugh at people for saying their marriage would die down, and they'd hate each other. Sure they had arguments, they got annoyed at each other a lot, and they weren't as amazingly spontaneous as they both thought they wanted to be, but none of that mattered. Not when he looked at the little bit of gray streaking her hair and wondered why he thought that was incredibly sexy. 

Picking up the piece of paper again, Andy tossed it back into the shoebox and closed the lid. Standing up, he crossed over to April and took her up in a massive hug that she reciprocated naturally. 

"Nothing. Let's go back to bed," he whispered, smiling.

April was smiling too, all the way back to the bedroom. She kept that small grin on until they heard Sam wake and start crying.


	67. Firsts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymously prompted as a what-if based on a certain line in "Christmas Scandal."
> 
> Breaking schedule because last day of shooting feels :(

She had never expected them to reach this point, if April had to be honest with herself. Not that she didn't actually love him or that she disbelieved him when he said it to her, but it felt like a dream to her. April wouldn't admit that she had a soft spot for fairytales about Princes Charming and knights with shining armor because she had a gruff exterior to maintain. It was easier that way, to keep the possibility of hurt away, but it let that inner desire melt away a little bit. 

The child that had grown up believing that she'd find someone that was so cool she'd marry them without a second thought became the twenty-something convinced that it wasn't worth trying. Trying always led to failure, or at least a lot of wasted effort for very little benefit, so why bother when you could just not care at all? The problem was that she did care, and that she desperately wanted to tell herself to stop giving any time at all to those thoughts - those stray, niggling doubts and internal screams. Like fraying strands, that self-doubt ate at her until it became way too hard to deal with the reality in front of her. 

But there she was, nuzzling Andy's shoulder on the Ferris wheel. What was their love supposed to be? Was it going to change their lives? She really didn't think so. It wasn't like simply saying the words to each other was going to make any difference at all, but to April it kind of did. In a strange way, everything was different and in an awesome way.

"Hey," Andy whispered to her, his voice all tender and weird. 

"Yeah?" she looked at him, April feeling that weird fluttering movement of wings in her chest that she chose to call love.

"I love you," he said softly, masking his seriousness with that goofy grin she adored, "and I'm sorry, I guess."

"For what?" she asked with a curious bunching of her eyebrows.

She didn't want to go back to the time when they didn't say they loved each other, April realized just then. That was when they weren't really open, when April felt like she had to hide from him even a little bit, and he was afraid of something as stupid as how old she was. But, April still hadn't been honest with him. Despite that, he never pushed her. He never questioned her awful excuses and bubbling nervousness, and that's what made it so easy to let him know she loved him.

He cared, and it was obvious, but April had that dwelling fear that he was bored. There was only so much she could offer him before she got scared, told him she had to leave, and left him when just moments before she was sliding her shirt off. She didn't  _owe_ him anything, April wasn't that stupid, but she wanted it and yet hated that she couldn't let Andy closer to her. After all, she still had that malevolent exterior to polish and keep up. 

"That you thought I didn't love you," he chuckled and rubbed her shoulders slowly, "because I super do. I totally love the crap out of you."

"I love you too," was all April could say. 

She did love him. That was easy enough to say, but she wanted to show him. April wanted him to be able to wake up with her, and she wanted to roll over to his ruffled hair and smile, but it all felt too real. Too much like some dumb fantasy she was going to wake up from, and the possibility made her retract. 

"After we find Li'l Sebastian, d'you wanna make out by the churro stand?" Andy asked her suddenly, his eyes getting that gleam that left April a little braver.

"Sure," she shrugged, pretending that she wasn't thinking about any of this at that moment.

April couldn't be bothered to think about how many times they'd sit on a bench in a park, take peanut butter sandwiches, and make fun of pedestrians only to end up with April on his lap. It was innocuous enough, and it was sweet the way he played with her hair sometimes though April wouldn't admit to enjoying that either. Maybe to Andy, but no one else. Then they'd kiss and it'd be pleasant and taste like peanut butter and dirt, little sweet pecks that devolved into something more, until April flushed and backed away from him.

How many times had she done that? At least one more, considering the sugary bread they shared and the incredibly saccharine taste in Andy's mouth when they fulfilled their promise, Andy leaning back up on the stand and April pulling him up to stand and hold her a little closer.

"Hey," she said in that minute distance between their lips, their breath mingling. 

"Hey," he echoed, smiling and looking down at her like she was the only person in the entire universe. "What's up?"

"It's super late, d'you wanna, like, head back-?" 

"I can drop you off at your place," Andy suggested. 

"Don't worry about that, let's just crash at your house," she said more shakily than she'd have liked.

"You're right, Burly's couch is super comfortable. You can sleep on that," he nodded, taking her hand and walking before she could explain.

 

* * *

 

 

At Andy's, but really his guitarist Burly's, house she felt even stranger about how this was going. Why couldn't she just tell him?

"So, here you go," he patted down a pillow on the couch. "Bed, or not really. But, you'll be fine."

"Andy," she started, playing with the dangling string on her jacket. 

"Right, you're right!" he half-shouted, looking like he was embarrassed. "Sorry, April... you should totally have my bed. I'll sleep on the couch."

"No," she chuckled. "Why don't you just... y'know, I can sleep in there."

"Yeah, that's what I said-"

She didn't let him keep talking, instead leaning up and kissing him to shut him up. Andy had a heart of gold, most of the time, but he had a hard time grasping some things. 

"I love you Andy, like a lot," April pushed him backwards through the house, towards the bedroom. "We're dating, so it's not weird at all to sleep together."

"Oh, you mean like sex," he nodded, understanding. "Oh, you mean like  _sex_!"

He had a mixture of astonishment and giddiness on his face. April didn't know which one was more concerning, or why her hands were kind of shaking on Andy. Either way, she had already gone this far and going back would be cruel to both of them, something that April had vowed never to do again after what she'd put herself through. Eventually they were sitting on the bed and April was unsure why she couldn't just go ahead and move her hands already at the hem of her shirt. 

"Andy," her voice wavered. 

"Yeah?" he asked, adoration all over his face. 

"Do you... you want to do this, right?" April offered, her grip tightening on her shirt.

"Totally!" he crossed the distance between them and kissed her again, harder and his hands finding hers on the shirt before he broke off. "You do, right? Oh God, I didn't mean to-"

"Andy, I'm the one who started all this," she laughed, but didn't move the shirt an inch. 

"You're being weird. I know you pretty well, April," he nodded knowingly, backing up. "You're being weird. What's up?"

It was one of those things chained in social stigma and other stupid norms that made April loathe it even more. So why couldn't she just tell him? April had let Andy know so much, get so near and close, that there wasn't any reason to hold back now. She loved him, after all.

"I'm kinda scared," she admitted.

"About what?" he asked obliviously, leaning back in the bed and resting on his hands.

"This. All of this, like loving you and you loving me and us right here, right now," she patted the sheets, continuing. "I mean, I don't know what to do here."

"Well... we were gonna do it, I think. So, we... uh, do that?" he suggested, smiling. 

But she hadn't, and the terrifying possibility of Andy hating her and hating it was all too much. But that wasn't even one ounce of the real chance that she could just wake up afterwards, tired and alone in her bed at home and everything would be a terribly amazing dream. Andy wouldn't even have said a word to her and life would be Pawnee, 2009 instead of Pawnee, Now. She'd be alone again, and he wouldn't be the same person she'd imagined he was.

That was the fear bringing her down, shackling her to the doubt and worry over what had originally been nothing. Even when Andy was afraid of her because of the age difference she was impossibly shaken by the reality that she had a chance for something that could happen, only to have it taken away over and over.

"Yeah, that's what I mean," she couldn't look at him for a moment and when she looked back up he had a quizzical expression. "Andy, I'm a virgin."

"What? Woah, really?" he just sat there with a blank understanding, mouth half-open. "Didn't you have, like, three boyfriends at least before I met you?"

"Derek's gay, and we never did anything really," she shrugged, "and Eduardo was literally just to make you jealous."

As long as she was admitting things and being open, why not go all the way? April kind of liked the feeling anyways, like she could let Andy know that she wasn't actually trying to forget him. If he knew that she was testing him, trying to find exactly how far he'd go, then maybe both of their past transgressions would be forever discarded. They could start over, in a way, and be just them. But first they had this speed bump to get over.

"Are you, like, afraid of sex with, like, anyone or just... y'know, me?" he asked, the stupidly poignant question the last thing she needed to think about.

"I mean, with anyone I guess but especially you," she grimaced a little, but moved over to him and held his hand with a faint smile. "Not like that, Andy. I  _love_ you, dude. I just mean, you're so  _new_ and I'm feeling things I've never felt before... like, for you."

"Me too, April," Andy mumbled, their stare unbreaking. "I mean, I liked Ann a lot and stuff but this... you're seriously the best and I don't know what I'd do without you."

"That's why, because I'm afraid... not that you won't like it or that I won't like it, but everything's so different and so fast," April shrugged, throwing her hands up briefly before shaking her head and going back to hold his hand, "I thought that, maybe, I was just living in a fairytale. That you were like my stupid Prince Charming or something and I'd just wake up from a dream."

"Do you want to wake up?" Andy proffered, his eyebrows raised.

"Not at all, but... fairytales aren't real, y'know," she laughed at how childish she sounded before rubbing her eyes and continuing. "I dunno, I just thought you'd be a fantasy."

"I mean, I'm pretty real. That's cool, right?" Andy moved to his knees, taking her hand in his. "I can be like a real Prince Charming, but cooler."

He sat like that, smiling, and April wondered why it took them so long. In reality it wasn't actually  _that_ long, but it could have been so much more. Then again, they were here now and things couldn't be better. Maybe they were meant to go through their troubles to get to where they were, and to be stronger for it. Maybe that was their storybook ending. Instead of answering him, April moved forward and took his hand, shifting it to her back until he naturally curled around her hair. Kissing him felt like the most obvious answer in the world, and so she did. 

Thinking like that, reverting back to the April that had hope and didn't think she'd be alone forever, felt great. It was amazing. Even if Andy was many of her firsts, she wanted to know what it would be like to have him as a few of those lasts. There weren't many things that could break through her inability to disconnect herself from failure, from anxiety and doubt, but Andy always did. He always knew how to say one word or give her one look that told her things would be okay. Life would all right, maybe, if they bothered to try for each other.


	68. Cut - Hold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested a while back as an expansion on April's panic attacks in this series, namely the first one she has. Christmas fic will continue its course after this, I do believe!

Andy doesn't mind working at the bar, mostly because the rent's already hard to deal with and sitting around watching people and getting to be "the muscle" is a funny thing. People there weren't ever a problem and he never had to do much more than suggest someone leave the place with a hand on their shoulder. Besides, the owner said that he might even get a full time gig there if he stayed around any longer. 

It was weird, like Andy had found a place somewhere. Even if it was a little more expensive than he'd have liked that wasn't the point. The best part of every single day was getting to be around April whenever he wanted. Back in high school, she was reticent and Andy didn't know how to handle that so their initial friendship wasn't very fluid and mostly consisted of that stupid courtyard. Even if she spent a lot of time at the small campus or cafes and libraries around town Andy loved when the doorknob jingles and April walks in. 

That day, he's sitting up there on the bed playing with one of the curlycue bits of guitar string, unwrapping them and trying to remember which one he'd unwrapped when she walks in. She's flushed, her face bright red but that was probably from the cold, and the moment she sees him April walks over to him and pulls him into a hug. There's a sinking feeling when her arms go around him because Andy knows this desperate embrace too well, but he's going to smile through it and try to feed her his feigned happiness. 

"How was school?" he asks and immediately it's the wrong thing because she refuses to look at him. "Whatever, wanna get a pizza?"

"Sure," she says slowly, but Andy doesn't get to detach from her. 

So he takes her to the bed and orders on her laptop for them. April puts her head on his chest and plays with the mangy sweater he's got on, and Andy wants to pretend like she's happy in that moment - just the two of them - but he can't justify it. But that's okay because he knows it isn't about him, and that's fine because that's never crossed his mind for a second - it's always been about her. 

"Hey," he whispers when they hear someone walk up the steps, "that's probably the pizza."

He kisses her on the cheek, lightly and more just to let her know he's just moving a few feet, before opening the door and paying the guy. Nothing about it's appetizing to April, who only chews on one piece furtively, so Andy makes up the slack and devours three slices. At one point grease flows onto his hand and he smears it on April's face, hoping to elicit a smile and return of grease, but she just wipes away at it and pushes her head once more into his chest. 

"You wanna talk about it?" he proffers, unsure. 

"It's stupid," she mumbles as her fingers get caught up in the holes in his shirt.

"Okay," he answers. 

He tries every day not to push her. Andy knows what he's supposed to do to help her, how he's  _supposed_ to talk and act but April's so infuriatingly important to him sometimes he forgets. Sometimes he pushes too hard and it might open a wound that's not ready to heal, and April isolates herself from him for a while. Whether that meant refusing to talk or just studying all day, working on projects weeks in advance just so she doesn't have to say a word, he knows when it happens. Other times, like now, she just looks at him in the way that makes his chest collapse all at once. Her eyes catch his and the whites are so gigantic, her face searching and begging at once, that Andy gets a lump in his throat just looking at her.

"It really  _is_ stupid," she starts without his request and Andy feels a little relieved at how easy it's become for her to just open up, "but I thought I got something in class, and I - y'know it's just a lab so I did an exercise and did it  _really_ wrong."

"So, you're super smart! You mess up once, who cares?" Andy says quickly, rubbing her shoulder and smiling at her. "One mistake doesn't ruin everything."

"I know, but... I could see it in everyone's eyes. Like, 'who's this idiot?' and I - I dunno, it's dumb," she turns and looks away from him, shivering. 

"You're the smartest person I've ever known," he kisses the top of her head and she relaxes back into him a little before tensing up suddenly.

"Even the professor just squinted at what I drew and... can I do this?" she hesitates again and Andy tries to keep a hold of her but she turns around on him. "Can I do this?"

"Like, school?" Andy asks.

"If I'm screwing up  _now_ , how the hell am I supposed to graduate... and that's just school-" and April's throat seems to catch her breath, because she stops talking all at once and her breaths excite.

It's like that for a few seconds, April sitting there with new and hasty breaths before she looks at him inquisitively and swallows hard. Andy doesn't even know what he's looking at before she curls inward and onto his chest, looking around the room, and the breaths get sharper and louder. April's eyes widen and she doesn't seem to actually take in her surroundings anymore.

"What's happening?" Andy says hurriedly. 

"I-" she tries to say something but croaks out a noise before shuddering and hyperventilating more. 

"April, what's happening?" Andy's voice rises uncontrollably as he tries to figure out what this is.

Before she left therapy permanently, Andersson told her that she has to be careful of a few things. April understood immediately what the triggering would be but Andy still doesn't. Was school part of that? Even so, Andy never heard of whatever April was doing now other than the wracked lungs and tightening grip around him. Trying to figure out what to do he shoots out of bed and walks over to the small kitchen, filling a glass of water and fumbling it over to her.

When he hands it to her, April struggles to get it down but calms for a moment. Her breathing slows and though her eyes are weirdly watery and distant, she blinks that away and seems to come to grips with the situation.

"What just happened?" Andy squeaks, his own hands getting shaky. 

"I-I don't know, that's... uh, that's never happened before," she rolls her shoulders like an implicit tightness is in her back.

"Is there anything I can do? Are there, like, pills or a drink or something?" Andy paces in front of her, trying to remember if he'd heard about this before.

"No, just... I just want you to sit here for a while, okay?" April says slowly, and Andy obliges without a second thought.

So they sit like that for a while, both of them expecting her to suddenly jostle and crumble into another attack like before. April doesn't though and instead they stay in bed for an hour with her arm over his stomach and Andy's head arched awfully on the pillow behind him. After a few more minutes of cramping and the discomfort, April slides up next to him and presses her back into him. With another kiss on the back of her head, Andy tries to think of the nearest place he can call. 

Honestly, it _was_ all about April.


	69. Petty Theft and Mistletoe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea when this would be set. I just wanted to write cute, pre-relationship Christmas fluff.

Somehow they had ended up hanging out on Christmas Eve. When Andy asked her why she didn't go home, she just told him that it was boring there. He smiled then and April wondered why it was so easy to return it, a little heat in her cheeks that was unwelcome, before coughing and looking away from him. They weren't actually doing anything, unless walking around a CVS at eleven o'clock was considered something. 

Andy was a giant oaf, and when she first met him he was incredibly selfish, but things had changed a little. Only for him though, because April certainly wasn't thinking any of these things or wondering why they were still awkwardly skirting around the very thing that they both clearly wanted. Either way, she just had fun being around him. 

"Hey, where's the good toothpaste? Like, the bubblegum stuff - all they have here is the gross regular flavor," Andy grimaced and pushed aside some things on a rack before sighing. 

"Do you even use toothpaste?" she asked sincerely, her hands stuffed in her jacket to try and catch some of the warmth of the place before they walked out into the Pawnee cold again. 

"Well, that depends," he said with a very serious look on his face, "on whether you mean I use toothpaste or I have  _ever_ used toothpaste."

"Gross," April scrunched her nose up and Andy laughed. "Why'd you even want to come in here?"

"I didn't get decorations and stuff for Burly's Christmas party," he explained, picking up a tube of paste with a Santa on it, "so I gotta do that too."

April chuckled but walked around to the miniature aisle with all the small candy bars, picking up one of the mini-sized festive Kit-Kats and taking another handful. There was some actual Christmas themed candy, a few candy canes in variable flavors, so she picked those up too. They were disgusting but it didn't matter if they were decorations anyways. 

Meanwhile, Andy had a greeting card and a gift bag in his hands when April walked over to him. He was staring at a tiny fake tree and bag of green plastic and oddly reflective red baubles labeled mistletoe. He was scratching his chin with the Holiday card, looking around when he spotted her.

"Hey, d'you think he would want us to get another tree?" Andy asked. 

"I doubt it. Who cares, this stuff's enough," she raised the bag of candy and looked at his meager Christmas offerings. "He should be happy you thought about it at all."

"You're right," Andy agreed, smiling widely. "You're so smart April, you're the best."

He walked towards the register, leaving April standing there with a tiny spark of heat rising through her chest and an odd, uncomfortably warm smile on her face. Without another thought she leaned down and picked up one of the plastic bags, quickly shoving it in her pocket. As she approached Andy, April wiped away whatever vestige of a grin she had in an effort to maintain absolute apathy. After all, what was there to smile about when she was hanging out with a really cool guy on Christmas Eve, buying stupid things that only vaguely related to the holiday at all?

Throwing her haul onto the counter, the employee sighed and looked at the large pile of goodies with nothing but contempt in her eyes. If April wasn't apparently going to a Christmas party, one that Andy never told her about until that night, this sullen late-shifter and her would probably become best friends that night.

"That'll be $58.95," she droned, ringing up the massive pile of stuff. 

"Okay," Andy said flatly, looking at April.

She looked back at him, and he nodded to her. April squinted and shook her head, which made Andy purse his lips and give a small chuckle. Before either of them could say anything the woman in front of them sighed again, bringing Andy and April to look at her once before exchanging an equally mischievous look. They both lunged forward, grabbing as much of the enormous pile as they both could and bolted out of the pharmacy. 

The woman only muttered a low whine, and before long April and Andy were out of breath with arms full of candy and Christmas cards. April eventually rolled her sweater up so that she could look at the haul while walking and picking at it. Grabbing one of the festive Kit-Kats, she bit into it and gave Andy a tiny flicker of a smile. His face nearly split in half from the smile, every bit of joy the guy was capable of in that moment, and April felt that same rising heat.

"That was really illegal," April intoned.

"And super fun," Andy pointed out, reaching into her pile and taking out one of the peppermint candy canes. "So I would say that was... a success."

"Totally," she said through chewing the chocolate. "When's Burly's party."

"It was a week ago," Andy said nonchalantly, breaking the cane in half before crumbling it and dropping the dust in his mouth.

"So why did we have to get this stuff now?" April asked while trying to hide a tinge of annoyance. 

"Because he got candy for the party and it was super good, so I wanted more," he replied with a few flecks of white and red sugar on his lips. 

"Oh, of course," April laughed, unsure why she was suddenly okay with being so cold and outside for basically no reason other than some candy.

They continued walking like that for a little while until April's phone buzzed with what she assumed was Leslie wishing her a Merry Christmas. Pulling it out of her pocket, the little plastic bag she pilfered at the store dropped onto the ground. Before she could pick it up, Andy had already crouched down and grabbed the faux-mistletoe that had fallen into the snow. Wiping it off, Andy looked at it curiously.

"I don't remember getting this," he bunched up his eyebrows in confusion. "April, d'you remember getting this?"

"Yeah," she answered truthfully. "I stole it when you went to go buy everything, or steal it all I guess."

"Y'know, this stuff never works," Andy said like he was relaying a series of facts to April. "I've never gotten anyone to kiss me when I pull this stuff out. They usually just say 'ew, no,' or 'Andy, I'm not making out with you in front of your parents.'"

"That sounds stupid," April nods, assuming he was talking about Ann and pushing that indignation away because an idea was forming in her head. "Besides, you don't just carry it around. You have to hang it up somewhere, like over a threshold or something."

"Isn't that what they use to dig up corn?" Andy asked curiously, unpackaging the plastic flora.

"No it's... whatever, here let me show you," April continued walking up to a closed shop's entrance. "I need a lift."

Andy complied immediately, crouching and letting her sit on his shoulders. When Andy stood up she flailed a bit while trying to keep her balance, eventually catching herself without tumbling over. April found a bit of paint that had chipped off, using it like a little clip for the mistletoe to nestle against awkwardly and hang precariously from. April didn't tell Andy to let her down for a few more moments, until he asked if she was done, and stepped under the bad decoration.

"Now you know what it's like to kiss someone under the mistletoe," April said confidently.

Even as April took his hands and looked up at him expectantly, Andy only had a confused look across his face. 

"What, no I haven't, I just told y-"

Still confused, April leaned up on her toes and interrupted him with a lingering, warm brush of her lips on his. Whether she wanted to or not, April couldn't for the life of her stop smiling at him after that. Maybe it was the cold, relatively fresh air destroying her brain or the fact that Andy had a bowled over expression. April didn't know, but she didn't stop smiling and she only let it grow wider when his lips eventually curled upwards.

Without another word Andy put his large, gloved hands on her cheeks and leaned down again. April didn't hesitate to move closer to him, arching into him when he kissed her again. There was more desperate want there than before, the first innocuous and possibly just friendly. Breaking apart, April struggled to find the words where they deserved to be but Andy had that infectious smirk that made words a little unnecessary. 

"Merry Christmas," he said slowly, eyes never breaking off of hers.

"Merry Christmas," she laughed, pulling him down once again to her lips.


	70. Eves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, timeline is so off but I've stopped caring for this fluff. Takes place in some nebulous timeframe when April gets back from Washington and it's also Christmas Eve?
> 
> Why not.

There are some things you just miss when your wife is away for a few months. Sure, sex is awesome. Sex with April is  _really_ awesome, but sitting in the house on Christmas Eve, sharing a quickly emptying forty and staring at their plastic tree is great too. Andy misses all of this, everything from just kinda seeing her every day to talking to her and now getting drunk with her. 

"I know you can, like, do whatever you want," Andy starts after another unfortunate alcohol decision with his beer chaser, "but I'm super happy you do it with me."

"What?" April inquires, finishing the rest of the glass bottle and tossing it on the carpet. 

Andy really doesn't know what got that line of thinking started. There were always times he had that though - times when he wondered why April was still with him, how she had come to the conclusion that he was still okay to spend time with, and remembering what he was always thankful for. 

"I mean, y'know?" Andy's head is kind of blank but he wants to let her know what he's trying to think. "You could be anywhere, do anything you're so smart, be with anyone..."

"Andy, what're you doing?" April slouched under his arm, slinking out and turning to him. "Stop thinking, just drink."

"Well, I mean you could divorce me f'real if you wanted to," Andy slurs, smiling despite how depressing that thought is to him. "You can-"

"Why the fuck is everyone telling me that?" April shouts suddenly, her face a blur of anger instantly.

"Telling you what?" Andy crawls back because April when she's legitimately angry is a terrifying prospect. 

"That - 'oh, you can just marry whoever, hurr,'" she affects a low, silly voice but Andy doesn't want to laugh. "Am I, like, not part of this fucking conversation or something?"

"That's not what I meant-"

"Like, why does some idiot who works for the  _President_ ," April waves her hands like that's not a totally awesome thing you can say about yourself, "talk like he's better than you. Like he fucking _deserves_ me or something."

Andy's head does a turn and he flips that sentence over and over in his head for a while before it dawns on him what she's saying. It takes him a little longer to speak up only because April's still frothing at something unseen and he just wanted to say how much he was happy for them to be together. Sure, a little drunkenly and wayward, but he  _thought_ the idea had gotten across. Then again, it had started April on this train into frustration.

"What are  _you_ talking about?" Andy voices his confusion, putting his beer down on the carpet and ignoring how easy it would be to just spill it from there.

"Nothing," April says, her eyes refusing to catch his.

"Well that's not true, you said something," he smiles at her but April just looks away from him.

"No, it's not anything," April does eventually look back at him, moving closer and cupping his face in her hands. "Don't ever think like that Andy."

"Like what?" he asks, oblivious and caught up in the endless depth he's always seen in April's eyes that's now so close to him. 

"I get to make my own decisions, and my decision is that you are the best person in the whole world," she rubbed his jaw with her thumb, comforting and her face breaking that anger into something stranger. "Like, ten times over. You're the best, and no one's gonna change that. No one, nothing, ever."

"I was just saying that too, and you don't have to-"

"I know I don't have to do anything," April explains, her lips curling into a smile. "But I want you, and not some stupid speech writer."

"I seriously don't deserve you, April," Andy says solemnly, picking his beer back up and taking a sip. 

"That's the point," she says with another small smirk.

Neither of them say anything else after that, and Andy doesn't just because he doesn't  _get_ it. Maybe at some point in his life he'll understand why April doesn't care who he is as long he's Andy, or why he'll always adore April regardless of anything, but for now he's going to stay on the couch and appreciate it. He's going to cherish that Christmas Eve until they make their way to bed, stumbling with laughter and drunken stupor as the past conversation is long forgotten.

He's going to pray for a blizzard so that he can revel in everything just a few days more.


	71. Cut - 2 & 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone said they missed some of the angst lately and this has been brewing in my head for a while. Also, depending on next week's travel plans, this may be the last thing I write until the New Year. If so, have a good one!
> 
> Very serious warning for themes of suicide, graphic scenes, depictions of suicide attempts. Do what makes you safe, friends.

When Andy walks into the apartment proper, he half-expects April to be blasting strange Russian chanting but instead there's a total silence that he likes too. It's something comfortable and serene with the blaring traffic outside, the ruckus of the bar at a bustle beneath them, and his own quiet breaths in the midst of everything else. He can see April lying in bed, eyes closed, and he smiles to himself. She's on her back with the covers wrapped all over her, breathing very softly with the rise of the sheets, and Andy wonders what he did to deserve this.

Walking over to the tiny kitchen, Andy sets down the grocery bag and pours himself a glass of water where he downs it in a gulp. Andy just wants to take in the apartment, the chipped and yellowing paint on the walls and the dangling fixtures on the ceiling, and be happy for it all. From the tiny range that barely works, a broken sink that only spouts half-cocked jets of water, and the fridge that only has a six pack and orange juice in it to the bad carpeting that's ripping up in thirty or forty places. They don't even have a bathroom door, only a bit of plastic that hangs down and sort of hides everything.

Walking over to the bed, the double that he barely fits on, Andy's smile falters a little when he sees how strangely pale April is. Along with that, her brow is in a permanent crease and constantly agitated not to mention the strangely red circles around her eyes and nose. Shrugging to himself, Andy intends to pull aside the covers and slip beside her when his eyes nearly bulge out of his head.

"April," Andy murmurs, scared, and his fingers run shakily to her hands. "April?"

Where there had been unmarred skin for a year or more, harsh gashes ran down from her palm to the middle of her forearm. Blood was flowing openly onto the sheets, staining in small pools where her arms sat limply. Both of them had similarly long, ugly cuts in vertical streaks, and April's pallor becomes terrifying. Andy tries to gingerly wake her, but only blurrily half-open eyes and mumbles meet him in response. Suddenly the small apartment that felt amazing and perfect is cramped and frightening - every inch of it drenched in April's blood. 

In reality the sheets were only partially soaked in brown stains, but to Andy they were seeping through everything in the walls and into his clothes. His head spun trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do there. Still shaking and his voice emitting perpetual whines, Andy touched her hair and brushes aside a bit of her bangs in desperate hope he's hallucinating this. But she's still bleeding and he's still just sitting there - doing  _nothing_.

"April, babe, wake up," Andy whines, grabbing her shoulders.

"Who..." she mumbles, but doesn't say anything more.

Andy picks her up in one motion, her weight nothing in that moment, and puts her over his shoulder. Bolting out of the bar, someone asks him if they're okay but Andy doesn't notice. He's already punching in an emergency call and rushing himself to the nearest hospital. All the commotion doesn't give him time to realize he's crying to himself and stroking her hair intermittently in the car. April's head lolls in the passenger side, the seat belt barely keeping her up, and he can't stop the tears. 

He had only been gone for about twenty minutes, and before when April had that same sad smile on her face he assumed they would talk about it afterwards. Thankfully, according to some lady who doesn't look nearly as worried as she should be, it was a good thing he got there in time. She explains to him how awful the scars are going to be, how quickly she was losing blood, and why the vertical cuts were insanely dangerous.

Andy doesn't stop crying for an hour, trying to figure out what's going on.

 

* * *

 

 

They really are ugly, April decides. One of the scars lies like a snake with no real goal on her left arm, eventually splitting off into two separate lines and ending on her palm, while the other is a mostly straight line with a swirl where her fingers slipped on her forearm. April's color doesn't come back for a few hours afterwards and when the cuts close up she doesn't say a word about it to Andy. She can see it in his eyes, how he distrusts her now, and it's not making things better.

It all had come back in a rush that night, like a wail approaching her until it was fully in her face and crying for attention. At the moment, Andy was downstairs working, and in some way she felt selfish for what she was doing. Testing the fixture in the ceiling with a pull of her arm, April doesn't see any other way. Some part of her hates that he'll have to find her, but another is too caught up in the senseless relapse to really notice anything else - nothing makes sense anyways. 

So she takes one of his belts. Wraps it around her fist until she's found one that'll keep her at least above the floor. April hangs it on the fixture neatly, then fits the loop around her neck. It's tight, snug, and honestly she hopes that it'll make it quicker. She's heard that breaking your neck is more common than strangling yourself. 

Maybe that'll be it. Her vision does blur for a second, all red and squinty with blood pulsing in her head, as her feet dangle and struggle to meet the carpet. In that second none of it seems right, but at the same time none of it has to make sense to her. To April, this is how it all should have ended years ago before Andy. 

"Hey April, I just forgot my stuff," the door to the apartment opens and Andy's voice makes its way to her ears before he shouts incoherently.

She remembers him struggling with the incredibly tight loop around her neck and wondering if he'll even be able to save her this time. She doesn't know if she wants him to. He'd only be saving April from herself for a moment, and then the thoughts would return. She doesn't get the time to think anymore on the matter because she passes out not long after.

 

* * *

 

 

April sits back on the bed, her breaths weak as Andy undoes the belt buckle digging into her throat. His own hand is bleeding profusely all over her but Andy's eyes are scattershot in their sight, not noticing anything in its entirety save for her. He couldn't get the belt off of her when she was hanging - oh God, she was  _hanging_ \- so Andy did the only thing he could think of and pulled the entire metal fixture out of the ceiling in a fit of desperate strength. It cut his hand all over and left a gaping hole in the roof, but that didn't matter to him.

The only thing that mattered was April's dull thud as she fell into his arms afterwards and how scared he was when she didn't respond. Eventually she does choke out a cough and return to relatively normal, albeit stuttery, breaths as her eyes flutter open. 

"April, hey? Hey, hey!" Andy's words fall out of his mouth before he leans down and kisses her forehead, her cheek, her lips in succession. "Hey, you there? April?"

"Wh-Why did you stop me?" she hacks for a second. 

"Because you were trying to kill yourself," Andy says hurriedly as if he doesn't want to say the words at all. 

"You never listen to me, do you?" April asks, holding her head and swaying as she blinks herself back into reality. "You never fucking  _listen_."

"What?" Andy's speechless, because that's the only thing he knows how to do.

"You can't make decisions for me, that's what I told you... and you; you stopped me," she sighs, feeling around on the bruises on her neck. "You stopped me, why did you stop me?"

"Because... I love you, April. Why would I let you do that?" Andy's own breaths feel like they're constricted by a noose. 

"You'd let me get away from all of this if you loved me," she squeaks, rubbing the disgusting lumps of flesh on her arms. 

Andy quiets because he doesn't have an answer for that. He doesn't know what to say to her then, what will make her better. In some way, he knows that's impossible. He's always known, but he's never had to take his girlfriend out of a loop around her neck. He's never had to rush her away from a blood-soaked bed and keep her wounds closed with his bare hands. Andy's never had to look down at his hands and see her blood on them, fingers shaking as he wonders why he can't do anything.

Why he's helpless to watch her do this. It's not about him, he knows that, but who's  _really_ the powerless one?

"I-I know, and I'm selfish because of that," Andy admits in a hoarse whisper. "I'm sorry."

"You're not selfish," April immediately fires back, despite the contradiction. 

"But you-"

"It's not supposed to make sense Andy," she explains as she sits up and stays far away from him on the bed. "None of it makes sense."

"Will it ever?" he asks, hopeful.

"No," April answers bluntly. 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy doesn't like leaving her alone for very long anymore. Both of them are annoyed by it, and soon he lets his guard down because it's overbearing and he hates seeing her mad at him. The problem is that he never knows when he'll come home to April in sweats and staring at a laptop or April in a pool of vomit and over-the-counter nightmare cocktails. Thankfully it's never the latter, and it isn't for two years.

And then he goes home, and she's silent in bed. Andy walks over, solemn. Her eyes are shut in sweet peace, maybe like she's always wanted, and Andy pulls back the covers to let himself in. There's no cuts, and there's no pills, and he nestles against her quietly without any hope left in his system. He just needs her body heat, her slow breaths that he can still feel, and the way her fingers move through his even in sleep. 

It's a beautiful thing when she opens her eyes and smiles at him later that night.


	72. Don't Believe a Word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breaking schedule because I'm in a writing kinda mood at this late hour :)
> 
> Requested anonymously on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) as even more expansion on April and Andy's roadtrip to the Grand Canyon.

Both of them agree to stop just a few hours outside of Pawnee, Andy complaining that his stomach hurts and the diner they just passed saying something about milkshakes and April's honestly tired of being cramped up in the small car. Things had fallen silent in the previous half hour, after Andy started playing a Boston playlist from her phone way too loudly and she woke up in a hazy anger. He was screaming out the lyrics to "More Than a Feeling" but she just wanted him to shut up.

When they park at the diner Andy walks in ahead of her, and she has to remind herself that she's doing this because of  _and_ for him. They sit at one of the only booths and they get a double order of fries and two of the monster milkshakes they were advertising.

"Hey," April says to him quietly from across the booth, taking the paper straw packaging out of his hand. "You're supposed to be happy, Andy. Being mad's my job."

"You still wanna do this, right?" he asks suddenly, ignoring the fries in front of him. 

"Just because you woke me up and I was groggy doesn't mean I wanna stop this trip-"

"That's not what I mean," Andy looks up and April's playful smile drops instantly.

What he's saying is the dumbest thing she's ever heard come out of his mouth, and that was impressive. It might be the worst thought that he'll ever have to think about, given how strangely easy their life is, and she wants it gone. Being mad or depressed  _is_ her job, not Andy's. He's not allowed to be sad, especially when it comes to them - he's never supposed to think like that. He shouldn't have to ever worry about that. _  
_

"I don't wanna talk about that," April says hoarsely, picking up a handful of fries and shoving them in his partially open mouth. "Ever."

"Does pffat-" he speaks through the food but April shuts him up with another glare.

So they sit like that in an uncomfortable silence, finishing what they've ordered before leaving to continue their drive. April lets him drive because if she takes over she's sure he won't stop thinking about what she actually meant. 

 

* * *

 

It's some other unfathomable stretch of highway and endless flat plains when April takes over finally. They stop at the side of the road to do the switch, and when April walks out to the front of the car Andy meets her there with a sad look on his face.

"I love you," she says out of the blue, smiling just to get him to remember what they're doing. "This trip's gonna be awesome, and I love you."

"Yeah," he mutters half-heartedly, walking past her.

Trying to suppress the urge to shout at him, April grumbles her way to the driver's side and pulls out onto the road again. Again they quiet and April hates it. It's not like the other times when they just sit around in pajamas at four in the afternoon and cuddle on the couch, unmoving and saying little. Andy's almost pouting, his eyes staring away in that swerving train of thought he has, but April doesn't know what she's supposed to do.

"You can play that album you wanted to," she blurts out. "The Pearl Jam one, and you can sing as loud as you want."

"Sure," Andy mumbles.

He does play it though. April makes sure to give him a smile and point out all of the signs and billboards they pass, especially when she sees a fast food chain and desperately wants a bucket of grease to stave off the hunger for a little while. And then again when they pass a motel and wonder if they should just sleep in the car, but the shifts plan just isn't working with Andy's sense of direction and April's unwillingness to break a nap. 

At the front desk of the motel, the guy behind the counter leers strangely at the two of them before passing them a key. When they get inside one of the dingy rooms April's thankful she doesn't still have that little black-light on her keyring. 

"God, I'm tired," Andy groans when he slumps onto the bed and quickly falls asleep. 

April jumps onto the bed, her weight barely making Andy shift in his sleep, before she gives up trying to wake him and buries her body into his back. With that heat, curled up on the flea-ridden mattress and sheets, she falls to sleep with a hopeful contentment. 

 

* * *

 

When she wakes up, Andy's gone. Checking the bathroom and, for some reason, under the bed he's nowhere to be found. Blinking away tired eyes, April pulls back the curtains of the sole window that leads out to the motel parking lot. It's nighttime and there's very little luminescence coming from the motel's vacancy sign but she can make out the absence of her dad's car.

Opening the door in a hurry, a note slips out from a wedge in the door. Picking it up, there's Andy's crinkly handwriting:

_Went to pick up food, be back in a few. Love you lots -Andy_

Taking another deep breath, April goes back inside and turns on the dusty TV in an effort to forget that Andy didn't bother to wake her up.

 

* * *

 

April stirs when the door opens, the sounds of _Th_ _e Price is Right_ reruns being overwhelmed by the movement of Andy. He has three big brown grocery bags in his hands, his face alight with familiar excitement that makes April more comfortable than his dour demeanor. He sits down and kisses her quickly before launching a bag of pork rinds her way along with a box of donuts. Popping open the bag, she nestles back onto the headboard of the small bed while Andy digs out food and bottles of water.

Other than the noise from their loud snacks and Bob Barker, they don't say much. Eventually April pulls her legs up to keep a little warmer, still refusing to use the sheets, and Andy throws an arm around her and pulls her closer to him. Smiling to herself, she rests her head on his shoulder and welcomes the heat.

Again they fall asleep, this time facing each other. April bumps their noses together playfully several times, making a noise that she would adamantly refuse sounds at all like a giggle, and kisses Andy more times than she can count.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, April stretches away some of the kinks from falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the night to an insistent Andy, and falling asleep again for a while in a strange contortion of their bodies. She lets him snore for a few minutes longer before shaking him awake. They get back on the road after inspecting the shower and deciding that the tub is just barely big enough for the both of them.

Andy drives and April kicks her feet up on the dashboard, tapping her feet idly to the music. 

"Hey," April calls to him when she feels a need to say something. 

"What's up?" Andy returns, looking over briefly and giving her a grin. 

"It's okay to think like that sometimes, it's normal, just don't... don't believe it, okay?" she squints through the sunlight that's breaking past the windows. "Let's just go see the Grand Canyon."

Andy doesn't say anything to her, instead turning his head and blotting out the sun with his movement. He smiles at her again, a mile-wide ear-to-ear kind of grin that makes her chest vibrate in a thousand amazing ways, and she returns it as best she can. Andy laughs and reaches out one hand to hold hers for a few minutes before it's so sweaty she has to shake him off. Thankfully he just laughs at that and wipes his palm on his jeans, not holding her hand again but kissing her and saying that he loves her adamantly when they switch off an hour later.


	73. For Real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spawned from a request for the first time Andy meets April's parents. I'll still get to that one as-is, but I wanted to have a little fun before I leave you guys for a week. 
> 
> This _will_ be the last thing I put here for the year, though, so don't be alarmed if I don't respond to any feedback for a while.

"Andy," April whined, tugging at his shirt.

"What, _you_ said we had to go shopping!" he laughed, picking up a cheap watch and putting it back down.

"Yeah, but that was before I knew how boring it would be," she grimaced, bumping into him with her shoulder and looking around the store.

"Hey, you said we had to go this year," Andy tried but only got a sigh in response.

For years the Ludgates had been inviting them over for Christmas, and at first they could avoid that on the excuse that they wanted to start their own traditions or something like that. Now, though, April said something about actually wanting to go, and when she told him that there'd be eggnog and they'd open presents together Andy was in. He had been too excited that they forgot they would actually need to buy presents for her parents now. 

That was something they managed to avoid before as well. So they were perusing cheap watches for her dad because he was apparently constantly telling her he needed a new one. Not that April ever listened to things like that and remembered them for gift ideas. She definitely didn't pick that up from Leslie.

"No, not that one," she told Andy slowly when he shows her the silver watch.

"It's on sale though... why not?" he said slowly. 

"He likes black bands, like the fake leather ones," she glanced over a rack and immediately spotted one. "Like this."

Andy smiled at her, a kind of grin that was bordering on calling her cute and making that abhorrent noise again, but April just tossed the box at him and hoped he would catch it. There was no way she was going to enjoy this at all.

 

* * *

 

They didn't even have a proper Christmas tradition themselves, so they technically shouldn't have to go. That's what April kept telling herself all the way through the car ride, and carrying the bags up her parents' house, and even when Andy gave her mom a massive hug before she gave April one just as back-breaking. Smiling, she realized how much she actually missed that.

"So, when do we eat?" Andy asked the moment his boots were off. 

Her mom only laughed and Andy joined in, looking confused. April pulled off her scarf and looked around at the stairwell and the small den that she'd forgotten all about. Not completely though, but the missed years and holidays there had removed a lot of the ingrained memories from her mind and left the smell of ham and her sister's incense not absolutely disgusting anymore. It felt like something she didn't hate anymore. 

Breaking her from the strange nostalgia, Andy tapped her on the shoulder and had a distressed look on his face.

"No, seriously - when do we eat, April?" he gave her that same childish look and she only smiled at him. 

"I'll go see," she said, giving him a light kiss and leaving her coat on a chair in the den.

In the kitchen, her mother and sister were pulling out a ham at that moment. Natalie only gave April a flat stare that seemed to scream for a way out, so April brushed past her and took her place. If she wasn't busy putting on those stupid oven mitts then she would have seen her sister's lips twitch for a moment. That definitely wasn't happening, though. The Ludgates never smiled on Christmas, let alone this much.

Silently, April mostly just watched her mother move various pots and set food on plates and in bowls. 

"D'you... need help?" April hesitated, waving her covered and useless hands around her awkwardly. 

"Oh, now you want to help?" she chuckled, amused and surprised at the same time. "Set the table, zuzu."

"When's dad coming home?" April asked through the clanking of dishes as she pulled out five plates. 

"He'll be here... any minute, actually," after checking the clock on the stove, they shared a smile and April walked over to her parents' dining room. 

"Why's he have to work on Christmas Day?" April inquired, that familiar empty chair she stood next to reminding her why Christmas wasn't always the best time of the year.

"The shelter doesn't close on Christmas, you know that," a shout answered her from the kitchen.

The door opened not long afterward and the stocky figure of her dad walked in a few feet before Andy shouted. Looking out the corner of her eye, because she obviously didn't care, April let a grin escape when she saw Andy shake hands with her dad and then envelop him in his familiar, gigantic embrace. They walked into the dining room with a laugh, Andy's eyes instantly darting to the plates and smiling broadly. April returned it and returned her father's hug without a second thought.

 

* * *

 

An hour passed and Andy sat back in a recliner, April in his lap, as presents were passed around. Andy opened a Colts hat and looked like he'd just been given the greatest thing in the world, immediately hugging Natalie and making her cry out in protest. April smiled when she answered this thanks, though. 

No one said anything when the presents were all unwrapped and the little fireplace was full and lit. Natalie continually drank spiked nog until her head rolled back on the sofa and she fell to sleep, and April's parents sat together on a loveseat with their doofy looking sweaters proudly adorned. They turned their heads and smiled at each other, her dad saying something that made them both laugh silently, and April turned to Andy. He was halfway asleep, his eyes barely kept open, and his hand moved idly on her back.

"Hey," she whispered to him, mimicking what she saw. 

"What's up?" Andy scooted her closer to him, their faces inches apart. 

"Super glad we did this," she explained with a smirk. "Feels like a real Christmas, y'know."

"Yeah, I'm happy too," he nodded, pulling her in for a short brush of their lips before continuing. "Your family's the best."

"Well, they're your family too," April nudged him, trying not to look at him because her face was far too hot for comfort.

She turned back and looked around the small room. The tiny tree with a few ornaments hanging from it, light strewn quickly around it, and a skirt at the bottom even though the plastic wasn't going to fall off anytime soon. The snoring from the couch didn't stop, Natalie curled up into her sweater and the glass she'd been slamming sitting on a table. April's parents eventually sat up and walked upstairs, leaving April and Andy to take their place and sprawl out as best they could.

Instead of going up to April's room that still had her bed and not much else in it, they stayed downstairs in the den. The fire was dead and they only had each other and a small blanket to throw over themselves, but it was comfortable.

"Yeah, we've got an awesome family," Andy said out of the blue when they nestled together, April's head on his chest and smashed up against him and the cushions. 

"Yeah, we do," she agreed and kissed him again before resting her head once more on his chest. 

Snow fell outside, and streetlights illuminated the suburbs a little, giving that year's Christmas the perfect atmosphere. On top of that, with the sounds of Andy's ragged breathing and Natalie's snoring, April wondered what it would be like to do this again - to be with  _their_ family for the holidays and enjoying themselves. Maybe it could be cool. 


	74. Three Times Merry and Thanks Larry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consider this my Christmas present to all y'all fine folks. Got hold of a laptop and just want to write...

_2012_

A ringing fell through the house, the doorbell chiming quietly through the still Christmas morning. April's eyes jolted open, immediately awake and agitated at their would-be visitor. Standing up, letting Andy keep his semblance of sleep, she stumbled through the dark and opened the door.

A small box sat on the porch, unmarked and otherwise unnoticed. Reaching down, she picked it up and peeled off the paper. Slowly, a smile rose on her face and April walked back into the house with the gift. Flipping it over in her hand, April looked at the hat and laughed to herself. Even if she wasn't going to go on Leslie's caroling brigade this year, April was going to get use out of this hat. Donning it, she flicked on the lights in her bedroom and watched Andy stumble around in the sheets.

"I'm up! I'm..." he yawned, stretching out in his boxers. "Don't - just shut the light off! So tired..."

While he struggled to get used to the light and not bowl over blankets, April shrugged off her thin sleepwear.

"Babe," April exclaimed with a smile on her lips. 

"What?" he asked, turning around and trying to squint through the light.

When he finally seemed to grow adjusted to the light he caught sight of the hat, its little gift bow still neatly on the ball-tip, and the rest of April and immediately smiled. 

"Merry Christmas," she said with a laugh as he darted over to her without a second thought. 

 

* * *

 

_2013_

Andy scratched his beard in the taxidermist's lounge. The place was, as a whole, insanely creepy. Since he was going for April, that was a good sign. Now he was staring at a catalog and a short, gruff man with a full-on mountain man beard. He kept asking Andy questions that he didn't really know how to answer, but now something had caught his attention in the dingy house-turned-office. 

"I want that one," he pointed to it on the wall, hanging not-so-proudly in the far back corner. 

The guy laughed at Andy, but he maintained until he walked out of the office with a box. Next stop was getting gift wrap, and then he could give April the greatest present she would ever need. 

Later that day, as Christmas Eve rolled into Christmas morning, Andy rolled out of bed at three in the morning. Shaking April out of a groggy, drunken sleep they walked out into the living room where Andy walked out with his acquired present. 

"Oh God," April shook her head at the overly large, poorly wrapped box but still tore at the wrapping. "Oh  _God_..."

Apparently, when Jurassic Fork and its source material were still popular, the taxidermist got quite the request. Now, sitting in their living room, was a three-foot tall velociraptor sculpture with a beard stitched into its mouth and a big red bag sutured into its claw. Along with that, just to make everything even better, was a big fuzzy hat complete with a fluffy cotton ball dangling at the end.

"It's pretty cool isn't it?" Andy nodded, appraising the Santasaur. 

"It's..." April looked away and for a second Andy thought she was going to yell at him for wasting money.

"You like it right?" he asked hurriedly with more than a hint of worry in his voice.

"This is the best present anyone's ever given me," she stood up slowly and walked over to him. "You are so thoughtful, babe."

"Yeah, well... it's all in the hips, they say," he smiled awkwardly and April chuckled before kissing him lightly at way-too-early A.M. 

 

* * *

 

_2014_

"Leslie, why are we-"

"Larry, shut up!"

"April, don't yell at Larry like that... he doesn't deserve it-"

"Ben, why do you always have to ruin everything?"

"Seriously April, please stop," Tom said, squeezing between April and Ben. "You two are like a bunch of grandpas with all this arguing."

"And why are we taking a picture anyways?"

"Good question Ron!" Andy shouted from a few feet ahead of everyone gathered in a semicircle. "It, however, is a question I don't have an answer for-"

"Babe, c'mon you have to be in this one!" April demanded, pouting until he rushed ahead of Ron's old camera and quickly wrapping his arm around her. 

Together, they all stood there - Leslie and Ben, Andy and April, Ron, Donna, Tom, and Ben. Craig had ignored their emails and Leslie's calls, and even Donna's DM's, so it was just them there. April looked around, over Andy's arm, and couldn't figure out a better place to be when the camera flashed than the Pawnee Parks Department. Leslie and Been still looked at each other all gross and lovey-dovey, but since Leslie was smiling it wasn't the worst thing.

Tom was flourishing as a business owner, Donna seemed complacent in her job as usual along with her something-but-not-a-boyfriend in that elementary school teacher, and Larry - how could she forget Larry?

"Wait," April looked around. "Larry wasn't in the picture!"

With aggravated groaning and more than a few loud curses, they all shot pointed looks behind them as the older man walked into the Parks offices with a red bag on his back and a massive grin on his face. Andy and Ben were the first to stop shouting profanities for different reasons - Andy to shoot forward and poke and prod at the bag, Ben when he realized he was doing what he told April not to just seconds before. 

"Merry Christmas everybody," Larry said, donning a little red cap. "I know it's not much, but Gayle and I set aside a little bit to get everybody gifts. We'll have to send Craig's out, but..."

"Woah, that's a pack of Mouse Rat picks," Andy opened up a small box and there were indeed a massive amount of guitar picks with the logo emblazoned on them.

"I've always wanted one of these," Ben whined, pulling out a brown hat with familiar looking props attached to the brim that all looked handmade. "I don't think I have Harrison Ford's jawline to pull this off though..."

People were handed small things from Larry's bag of goodies, all of them small and inexpensive but thoughtful, until April was left standing beside Andy and looking at his picks. Larry walked over to her with an empty looking bag, a smug grin on his face.

"Is my present going to be one of your paintings, but your head on a stick," April offered while looking at her nails. "Because that would be an all right gift,  _Larry_."

"No April," he reached into the bottom of the bag. "Andy told me you liked stuffed animals-"

"Andy!"

"What, that was like... when we first started going out," Andy explained. "I didn't know he'd remember that."

"So I thought you might one of these. Gayle makes them for everybody, but she added a little twist for you," he smiled and handed her the small animal.

It was a horse, but not just any horse. It was a mini horse - Li'l Sebastian. The only difference was that, instead of a cloth covering him and proclaiming Tom's recent investment or the slogan of Pawnee, there was a picture of Larry with a little red x slashed over his face. On the other side it said:

_Merry Christmas April, from the G-_

There wasn't enough room, but April had a strange desire to hug Larry right then. It almost made her vomit on the spot as well, but she managed to stomach through it say thanks and walk away with Andy's arm looped around hers.

"So, are we gonna go have a mashed potato fight at our place or-"

"Andy, we have the best family ever," she exclaimed suddenly.

"Is that a no...?"

"No, let's go," she shook her head again and continued walking, ignoring the words she said and the odd feeling that there wasn't a better group of people than those in that department. 

It was all stupid anyways, because in comparison to flinging flaky mashed potatoes and making out with Andy none of that mattered. Except for that niggling little "family" part. That didn't disentangle itself from her thoughts for a very long while. 


	75. Think

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo hey, hi there! I wanted to take a short break and I'll be back on regular schedule next week, but for now take this slice of angst. 
> 
> Taken from a request and combined with a relatively throwaway 'shot in Ch.70

The party was unremarkable. Ben said she had to be there for reasons that were basically pointless, but April still went. It was better than sitting around in the apartment, watching TV, and pretending that she doesn't miss Andy. April won't ever admit how much she loved that stuffed animal, or how often she fell asleep clutching the dog like it was everything she had. At least with work she doesn't have to sit around and think so much.

Andy was the kind of person that sat around and listened to her babble at him, sometimes up until four in the morning, and just did that - he listened. She would tell everyone else that they were drinking until that hour and having sex so that no one knew April, cold calloused April, could be anything other than that. So she goes to the house a few blocks away, telling herself it's because Ben's her boss and not everything else running through her mind.

The party's as loud and unexciting as she expected, save for the reason that made her drive back to the apartments in a hurry with staggering breaths.

 

* * *

 

"Ben," April pushed the door to his office closed quickly.

She rushed into work that morning, hands tired from gripping the three-legged dog, and tried to come to terms with the previous night. It was a mistake, she knew it, but every time April thought about it she got sick to her stomach. 

"Look, I told you I'm not writing fanfiction-"

"Shut up, I need to talk," April interrupted with a sneer before softening slightly. "This is really important, and you're... kinda the only person here that'll know what the hell I'm saying."

"That's very flattering," Ben answered with a sarcastic sigh. 

"Last night I did something stupid," she said without looking directly at him.

"Just because you don't like these functions doesn't mean-"

"I cheated on Andy," she rushed out before it was gone forever and all April would want was making fun of Ben.

The office is quiet after that and Ben's face loses the dumb smirk that he has for silent staring. His eyes widened and looked like he was going to say something before April quickly ran out of there. Sitting back against the door, falling to the floor, April thought how stupid it was. The only person that mattered was Andy - he was literally the only person that made her smile unironically - and that stupid, stupid party...

April bought a ticket on the taxi to the airport, telling Ben she has to go home for a week.

 

* * *

 

Flying wasn't always April's favorite thing if only because she had so much time to sit down and  _think_. It was a dangerous thing, just there and alone with her thoughts, that April knew to shut all of them out in favor for randomly selecting passengers and making up facts about them. She could make fun of people all flight if it meant never actually sitting there and thinking about how little of a thing it was but how it changed everything at the same time.

Instead of thinking how much of a failure she was, April could look at the guy two rows ahead of her with the bushy beard and tiny hat. He was a mime running from the cops in D.C. because he was framed for murdering someone with finger guns. 

Then, she'd look down and put the stuffed animal back in her lap. Cradling it there, April wondered how he'd react. If there was anything in the world that could break Andy it was this - no matter how insignificant it could be, or how blown out of proportion she was making it, this wasn't just something that gets swept under the carpet. That thought alone, picturing his big grin faltering if only for a second, made April sit in the airplane bathroom for a while longer than necessary. 

She can't think of any funny fictional characters anymore. When she sat back down all April wanted to do was stare at the little Champion stand-in and try not to think. Thinking always meant digging too deep, picturing him and his face, and then she'd let things get out of control. Things would be out of her hands and April didn't even like admitting that she cried about it, let alone doing it in a semi-public place.

 

* * *

 

Unlocking the front door proved harder than normal, walking in from the early flight to wake up Andy at eleven in the morning on a Friday. He was sleeping in their bed -  _their_ bed - and he looked so ignorant of what she had to tell him. Sadly the dog was in her luggage or she'd be holding onto the thing like a lifeline. 

"Babe, wake up!" she shouted at him, Andy propping himself up on his elbows with that same, dumb face of exhaustion on.

"Hey April," he mumbled, putting his head back on the pillow before doing a double-take. "April!"

He shot out of bed, running over to the doorway and picking her up without a second thought. She swung around twice and both times thought to herself that she didn't deserve any of this. When he let her down she meant to say something, to get him to stop, but he kissed her and April can't help but lean into it. 

If she had sat down to think about that - just  _doing it_ and just leaning into it - she would have broken down on the spot. 

 

* * *

 

Waking up a few hours later, April brushed Andy's hand off of her and sat up. Just like that, when she thought that there was something important there, April shrugged it all off and just slept with Andy. That wasn't the problem, and she knew it, but it made her think.

Thinking hurt, just like looking over at Andy asleep with his mouth half-open and tired hurt her. 

April got out of bed and dug through her luggage for the stuffed animal and made her way back into bed. There she curled into a ball, away from Andy, and buried the thing in her chest as far as it would go. Smashed against her, the dog felt more real than everything that was happening around her and April wished she could close her eyes and wake up in a world where she didn't make this mistake that was going to eat her alive from the inside.

She always knew she wasn't worth the time and effort Andy put in, but April went with it anyways. He made her smile and laugh, two things she comically loathed but internalized as not worth faking, and she hadn't ever had something like that before. Now she did something that basically threw all of that away. 

"Hey," a sleepy voice broke through her thoughts and a large, warm body snuggled closer to her. 

At least he was a relatively heavy sleeper when she was around, April thought, because otherwise he would feel her shiver with each tiny, light sob.

 

* * *

 

"Andy," she interrupted his loud chewing the next day. 

They sat on the couch and stared at the TV through blurry eyes, just like old times, and April knew she had to say something. Otherwise the week would pass and she'd wake up early every day so that she could hide the redness of her eyes and nose. He wasn't allowed to see her like that, even if Andy knew she thought like this sometimes and sometimes things got out of hand in her mind he still wasn't allowed to see her like this. That usually meant Andy would frown and look like  _he_ did something wrong and she couldn't let that stand.

"What's up?" he asked without looking at her, his eyes still stuck to the TV. 

"This is kind of important," April muttered, putting her hand on his arm over her shoulder.

He looked over and must have recognized the look because the TV is turned off not long after that. His hands seem extra warm and comforting that day which only made things worse for April. 

"You're not gonna ask me why I just popped up out of the blue from Washington?" she asked him first, tentatively. 

"No, I'm just super glad you're here," he punctuated with a light kiss. 

"Don't... just don't freak out, okay?" April started with, trying to figure out the words.

"Sure!" he answered with a wide grin and bright eyes, just like she knew he would.

If there was anything that Andy was good at, it was being a font of cheer and excitement that she honestly needed. Maybe not in that moment, right when she was going to tell him, but April needed someone like that and she knew it. On top of everything else that made her irrationally love the manchild in front of her, there was his overwhelming positivism. 

His smile was just like the one she pictured fading away, falling down his face until he looked at her like she was a parasite. It was the inevitable conclusion of these things, and April always wondered when that day would come, so now she got to sit there and think about everything. Thinking. It always hurt, and it always showed. That's why thinking about all of this, all at once, made April look down and squint away any wetness in her eyes.

"I... I did something really stupid," she admitted, looking back up.

"What?" Andy asked, scooting closer with one hand moving up to her face. "Babe, whatever you did it's not worth crying-"

"I cheated on you, okay?" 

His hand stopped on her face and April immediately regretted saying it. The childlike glee, the absolutely perfect way he'd smile at just about anything she did or said, and his comfort weren't there for a split second. None of it was in his eyes there, nothing but hurt. At least April only had to think about it, and herself, where Andy was staring at this revelation straight in the eyes. 

"Oh," is all he said, leaning back into the couch with a heavy thud.

They sit like that for a few minutes and April doesn't know how to follow up on that at all. She doesn't even want to, to be honest. She just wanted to take it back - everything - and be back to them. Eventually he turns on the couch and sits up facing her. 

"Did... d'you want to be actual divorced?" he asked with an exasperated sigh, his look so not-Andy that April hated it. 

"Andy..."

"I mean, if you wanted to be with someone else that's okay," Andy smiled a little, so fake and put-on that April wanted to smack him. "I just want you to be-"

"Don't fucking say that," April interrupted harsher than she intended, her hands shaking when she pointed at him. "Don't say that it would make me happy."

"But you-"

"It was an accident," she tried to explain. 

"How do you accidentally sleep with someone?" Andy asked quietly, intending it to be a joke but giving no humor in his eyes.

"I didn't sleep with anyone," April mumbled. "He just kissed me and I didn't stop him."

"Sure," Andy nodded. "But if you didn't stop him, did you want it?"

"No," April said immediately. "I don't want it, I didn't want any of it... I just couldn't think straight and it happened so fast."

"Y'know, I sorta expected this," Andy chuckled darkly and looked away. "Not, like, you cheating or anything. Just... moving on."

"I'm not-"

"If that's what you want, that's okay as long as you're-"

April shut him up with a kiss, bridging the gap just so he wouldn't say it. The very idea of being happy without Andy around her was stupid. When she had been alone and afraid of everything, afraid and hiding it behind lashes of hate and misanthropy, Andy did his best to break through all that and just make her smile. Now he was sitting there with a consigned sigh that told her he  _was_ thinking all of this. Even if he was the happy-go-lucky one, she knew he wasn't immune to any of this.

No one was, so it only made some amount of sense he told her all that. What didn't make sense was him believing any of it. Perhaps she was a bit hypocritical for telling herself that he wasn't allowed to believe any of it, and yet she was, but April didn't care about being correct here. 

"Don't say that," April said slowly, holding his face.

"How're we supposed to deal with this?" he asked seriously. 

"I wish I could take it all back, because I feel like I betrayed you-"

" _He_ kissed you, that's what you said right?" Andy stopped her, a sudden realization dawning on him. "He started it, right?"

"That's not how it works, babe," April laughed lightly. "I told you, I didn't stop him..."

"But you're here," Andy said softly, a real smile there. "You're here in Pawnee and not there with whoever this guy is."

"I probably shouldn't tell anyone who he is, should I?" April laughed. "Andy I came here to tell you this, and because I missed you."

"That's why you didn't cheat on me," he said matter-of-factly.

"But I-"

"Everyone fucks up," Andy shrugged his shoulders. "The part that makes you awesome is telling you that, but you won't listen. I know you April, and if you wanted anything else you'd be gone."

April stopped talking, stopped moving, hell she might have stopped breathing when those words came out of his mouth. There were a handful of times, only a few, that Andy made it obvious how much he knew and how important she was to him. If she was connecting that to what she said earlier, April would have started crying at the idea that he cared so much and she made it seem like she didn't every single day. Instead she leaned forward and kissed him again.

There were some things that needed saying, but this wasn't one of them. April couldn't ever say to Andy how it felt for him to accept her mistakes and move on from them, even if he thought she wasn't party in making that mistake, so she would just keep kissing him and telling Andy that she loved everything about him. 

 

* * *

 

The stuffed dog, the hole where one leg used to be, sits on her desk in Washington and in Pawnee until the thing falls apart. It's the only time that Larry compliments her and she returns it with an unironic smile before she makes fun of him.

Some things don't need to be said, and should just be thought, but this isn't one of them.


	76. Cut - That Kind of Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Directly following the last sequence in Cut. 
> 
> Deals with the aftermath of suicide attempts and references all of that, so yeah. Do what makes you safe.

It's been weeks but nights like these continue. April sits in front of Andy, his back up against the wall, with her head in his chest. His arms are circled around her and they're holding hands because she woke up in shakes, freely flowing tears. They both hate it, but neither of them say anything about it. That position is all they have, and in some ways that's all April really needs but this time she can't stop herself from babbling.

Whatever she's thinking comes out in a rush; Andy doesn't let go of her. 

"Why d'you even bother...?" she sobs, trailing off and squeezing his hands harder. 

"Shh, shh," Andy tries to comfort her by kissing the back of her head and generally keeping them as close as possible.

"I was going to  _go through_ with that, man," she chokes back and hates how vulnerable and stupid all of this is. "You were... you were gonna find me."

That might be the part that broke April. It was all so selfish. Andy said, right after she started seeing things without black spots and breathing without coughing, that he was being selfish for stopping her, but none of it makes sense even now. He wasn't supposed to make decisions for her, that was their deal, but she can't stop equally thanking and hating him. 

April bounces her head back on him once, twice, and stops on the third, much harder push of her head. He just sits there and rubs the back of her hands, Andy trying not to say anything but keeping them warm at four in the morning on a weekend. The memory of blood pounding through her body, eyes seeing distant black waves crash over her is all she remembers. That and, a few seconds after passing out, Andy standing over her.

When she relapsed in high school Andy looked sad and a little defeated, which is what she would have expected from him then if he caught her. Andy looked at her like she  _was_ going to vanish and the sheer terror in his eyes, his face soaked in sweat, shook April.

"Seriously, you should just leave," April says callously, uncaring how incredibly stupid a thing it is to even think. "It'd be way easier for you."

"How 'bout you?" Andy finally says something, turning her around in his lap until she's facing him.

She hates letting him see her cry. In some ways it was because she still liked to believe that she was above ever doing it, ever, but April's real problem is that she loathes that pity that she fears will come. Letting him see her like this might make him look at her differently than he did, and that terrifies her. She could handle being alone, at least that's what she always tells herself, but even though she knows codependency could kill her she doesn't like thinking about him being gone. _  
_

Alone with her thoughts isn't how April likes to spend too many afternoons anymore, not after the last time. When she was left to her own devices April nearly hanged herself.

"What?" she returns, not looking up at him.

"If I left would you be okay?" Andy says, his hands touching the scars down her forearms in slow, comforting movements.

"Honestly, no. I'd... it'd be this every day," April answer without a moment's hesitation. "But that can't-"

"Then I'm staying," and she can see him smile through the darkness. 

"That can't be your only reason for staying, Andy," April mumbles to herself, digging up bullshit excuses and half-cocked reasons that he needs to leave.

There are few things worse than thinking like that, like everything you've gotten isn't deserved at all, but April can't help herself. Important things like school, searching for internships, and Andy - all of those April tells herself that she'll wake up tomorrow without any of it - they're just fleeting and everything will come to pass in a flicker. To be broken like that, in a way that she doesn't know it's possible to fix, is the worst part. 

Minutia like food, living in a rundown apartment, and even just missing a red light by a mere second feels undeserved. Everything feels just that: fleeting, unwarranted. 

"It's not, and you know that April," Andy chuckles, one hand moving up to her shoulder and caressing her upper arm. "I love you babe, I'm not gonna leave. C'mon, you know that right?"

"I... yeah, I know," April tries to smile but her lips refuse anything other than a half-hearted attempt. "It's what you think all the time, though. Isn't it?"

"Hard not to think about you all the time. I think I spend most of my day doing that," he gives her a goofy grin and she looks away from him for a second. 

"Seriously Andy, I was going to... I was going-"

"I know," Andy nods, interrupting her by moving his arms under hers and pulling her into a hug on his lap. "I know, babe. You need to talk about it, I get it. Go on, talk about it."

April buries her head in the crease of his shoulder, just above his collarbone, and tries to think of the words. Instead she just soaks his shirt with fresh tears, getting more and more annoyed at how much and how easily she's crying. She was April Ludgate, not some overly sensitive teenager with problems. Thing was, those two weren't mutually exclusive. So she lets go and stays like that, with Andy, for a while.

In the end she doesn't actually say anything, but Andy doesn't move either of them. It might have been five minutes, two hours, or a month but April doesn't dare move away from him. Sunrise and morning light's around them but she's still sitting there with her legs wrapped around him and her face smashed into Andy's neck. 

There's no need for words just then.

 

* * *

 

Andy does little things over the following week. When they order a pizza he answers the door, it's usually April's job because he's passed out. Instead of going out to the diner like they usually do most weekends they sit in and he tries his best to cook. Even with boxed sides, instructions clearly labeled, he burns the macaroni and the cheese tastes like salt. April can at least eat the overcooked peas and some of the garlic bread he bought. 

She doesn't ask him why he's doing any of this because April doesn't want to hear it. The inevitable answer is going to be because she deserves stuff like this. It's a simple gesture and hearing the words might break her, so April enjoys it. 

One day they sit in, April skipping classes again because she feels uncomfortable walking out the door. Normally she would tell him to encourage her to go, and he'd always compliment her through the door even if she wore seven sweaters and snowpants, but this time he just nods and tells her that it's okay. They sit in bed, backs against the headboard, and quietly sit through the morning. Andy's arm is slung over her shoulder, brushing back bits of hair and pushing strands over her ear absentmindedly. 

"Thanks," April says out of the blue. 

"For what?" and there's no tryhard put-on stupidity there, just genuine curiosity. 

"Staying," she says simply.

The way he asked that question hurts, but in a way that sends explosions through April's chest and a burst of happiness that she doesn't really understand. She's been happy, she's been overjoyed, and she's been all of that with Andy too, but the way that he asks that like he's oblivious to everything he's doing - like it's just supposed to be, and there's no question about it - is almost too much. 

"Love you."

"Love you too," April responds slowly. "If you'd want to leave you can, though."

"I know I can," Andy doesn't look down to her even when she stares up at him, "but I don't want to."

He stares off at the wall, not meeting her eyes and April's thankful for that. Everything about his words hits her like a massive weight, Andy making it very clear to her that he knows his options. She could tell herself all day that he doesn't leave because he's afraid she'll do something, but the way they sit that day is different. Not unlike the kind of day that you want to spend sitting outside in the sun, lying in the grass and being happy that you get to breathe, but it's the kind of day that just makes April smile to herself and rest her head on his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm curious: do people still want to read from Cut? If I knew that people were still interested in the storyline then I'd be able to continue thinking of set ups and take requests when they trickle in, but I don't want to spend too much time on something that no one will read/want. Genuinely curious, but you don't have to respond. If you do, I don't necessarily want requests. I just need to know if it's worth the time.


	77. The Ludgates and Princess Loathing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymously requested as "the first time Andy meets April's parents." Simultaneously fills out a request for more Natalie (because who doesn't want more Natalie?)

April realizes all too late that she shouldn't have let Andy come and help her get some things from her parents' house. Though she was spending more and more time just hanging around Burly's house with him, the moment she stepped in the house there was the flicker of a memory triggered. Natalie sat upside down on the couch, her legs sticking over the back of the sofa and her head sitting on the floor. Her dad looked over but her mother wasn't in the room.

"Hey," April declared unceremoniously, waving her hand towards them and immediately moving to go upstairs. "Getting some of my stuff."

"Yeah, we're just gonna grab some-"

April turned around and gave Andy a glare, interrupting him. He clammed up instantly, a hand going to his lips. There was a sorry look all over his face when Natalie turned her head as much as she could and her dad noticed Andy. In the distance, like a horrible cry, came a shout of excitement. 

"Oh God, you shouldn't have said anything, Andy," April whined and dashed up the stairs, leaving Andy behind. 

"Where're you going?" Andy asked, hoping she could hear him. 

"You're on your own!" she answered him, the slamming of a door reverberating out.

Turning around, curious what she meant, Andy sees in an instant. A short woman, her face entirely captured in a smile and holding out her arms like she's ready to hug him, walked in front of Andy and motioned for him with those open arms. Tentatively, he stepped forward until he gave in and accepted the hug. Andy was kind of an expert on hugs. He knew who gave the best ones, for different reasons too: Ron tried to make it look like he didn't want those hugs but Andy could tell otherwise, Leslie had the same enthusiasm for each one that he did and those were  _awesome_ , and April's made him feel like he could run for a thousand years and never get tired. 

April's mom's hugs were  _almost_ the best of all those put together. She pulled him into a back crushing embrace that he barely got to reciprocate because Andy felt like he was going to pass out. She laughed and swayed a little, and somewhere Andy realized that she knew who he was before he really did. The only reason he guessed this was her mom was because she was older and had the same sort of button nose.

"Andy! We've been waiting to see you," she shouted, laughing still. How the hell did April, a perpetual happiness-vortex, come from this family? 

"Oh, yeah... uh, I've been asking April when we'd hang out. Or meet, if you will," he nodded, waving his hand in a flourish. 

She laughed again.

"I doubt Zuzu's said anything about us. Or, at least, anything good," she chuckled again and Andy already loved this woman's laugh.

"Well, Ms. Ludgate...  _Zuzu's_ kinda weird," Andy emphasized the nickname, smiling and noting it for later. "But in like a really cool way."

"April's more than weird; she's kind of awful," Natalie mumbled from her position, staring at her phone.

"You can call me Rita, by the way," her mother ignored Natalie's comment. "I've- I heard that you already met Natalie."

"Oh yeah, she almost got me arrested," Andy nodded, turning to catch Natalie's flat stare from across the room into the foyer. "That was awesome, by the way."

The younger girl gave a dark, muffled noise that Andy guessed was supposed to be a laugh and returned to her phone. Ignoring that, he turned back to Rita who still beamed up at him. Why was everyone in this family so short, Andy asked himself, before he caught her dad standing up and walking over. There wasn't an intimidating bone in either of these two people, and then there was April and Natalie. 

There were a lot of questions he had for her now.

"Mr. Ludgate," Andy stuck his hand out, back straightening. 

"Andy," he replied with a straight face before breaking into a smile of his own, "the first thing you should know is that I'm Larry, not Mr. Ludgate."

"Oh sure, yeah. Gotcha," Andy gave him a look and tried to think of anything other than how... plain this place all seemed.

Looking around, clapping his hands together, Andy just saw regular people things in the house. Pictures, paintings, furniture that wasn't spikes in the floor. To be honest he half-expected April to lead him to a small underground dwelling in the sewers. His train of thought derailed when he saw a picture on a small table in front of the staircase. Picking it up he started laughing and couldn't stop.

"You like that one?" April appeared above him, holding one of those mesh hampers full of clothes and dragging it behind her. 

There were almost tears in his eyes. Andy didn't know for certain that it was her, but the dour demeanor was unmistakable - there was April, she had to be ten or younger, standing next to two Disney princesses. The princesses of course had dazzling smiles but the little girl between them looked like all she wanted to do was take the sharp ends of their fans to their necks. There was even a small silhouette that looked a little like April's dad bent over, laughing.

"This is adorable," Andy said through painful breaths. 

"That's what we said!" Rita chimed in, taking the picture from him and staring at it. "I have so many copies of this. D'you want one?"

"Yes!" Andy answered immediately just as April groaned loudly and Natalie gave that same, murky chuckle. 

"Shut up, I could show him your tea party pictures," April hissed at the prone girl on the couch.

"What's wrong with that? Little kids always play house and stuff..." Andy started, confused.

"She was fourteen," April explained, smiling that same ironic smirk that just made him laugh. "That was before she got edgy and way into Ritalin, though. Obviously she's too cool for that stuff anymore."

"And I could tell Andy about the time you told mom there was, like," and Natalie started to affect a Valley Girl and waved her hand over her head, not looking back, "the cutest doofus ever in City Hall, but he's  _so_ into this other girl. You want lame-"

"Natalie uses..."

They both trailed off into argumentative yelling, most of it in Spanish, and Natalie even stood up to get in April's face. Andy just pulled his head back and looked over to the other two Ludgates, who only looked on smiling. 

"Uh, should we stop them?" Andy sidled up to them and hesitated to ask the question. 

"Nah, you should see them make up," Larry commented, still watching. 

"It's also pretty funny," Rita added with another grin. 

"Yeah, that too," her husband agreed.

Andy just watched as they eventually cooled down, the two girls easing off their tirades and pointing. This must have happened often because at no point did anyone intervene. Even Andy, who was more confused about everything and totally not understanding a single word they said, just sat watched. Partially because mad April was scary and Natalie was mostly an emotionless husk from what he knew. 

"Sorry," April muttered eventually.

"Yeah," the other girl said, turning back around and laying down normally on the couch. 

April returned with her hamper, dragging it until Andy grabbed it and hefted it behind his back. It wasn't even that heavy anyways, but April looked less cute and more annoyed when she sat there struggling with it. She didn't seem to mind anyways and returned her parents' hugs with less hesitation than he expected. A few moments later there was a small version of April's Princess Loathing portrait given to him that Andy immediately stuck in his wallet.

It was a good thing they apparently had a ton of extra copies, because he'd probably lose his wallet and there was no way he was gonna stop laughing at that picture.

"We'll be back later or tomorrow to get more stuff, okay?" April explained in that voice that Andy thought he alone got to hear from her.

In that second, realizing how familiar that soft tone was to him, Andy felt that same kind of thing like he got in April's hugs. It was almost like he'd never been happier, and that was saying something coming from him. Andy accepted Rita's kiss on his cheek and the nod from her father, turning to walk out of the house - that strangely normal  _house_ and not a witches' coven or werewolf den - with April's clothes and whatever else thrown over his back. 

After he stowed the hamper away in the back seats, Andy turned to April as he sat down.

"You really talked to your mom about me?" he asked with a big grin on his face.

"Oh my God," she said loudly but he could see a hint of a smile in response.

" _That_ is adorable-"

She smacked his arm all the way back to Burly's but neither of them stopped laughing either.


	78. Captains Dwyer and Radical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Oakmaster on ffnet as "April takes care of a sick Andy, sometime around the honeymoon phase."

"Andy," April nudged him in the bed for maybe the hundredth time in an hour. "Andy, wake up!"

Instead of getting up he did the same thing he'd done every time she poked and prodded him - continue sleeping. He kept sniffling in his sleep and his face looked all red, sweatier than normal, and he didn't move around as much in the bed. Normally he'd immediately jump out of bed, awake, and now he was just perpetually knocked out.

In all honesty it was kind of scary, but it wasn't like he stopped breathing so April just kept smacking his shoulder. Eventually he grumbled but didn't say anything or roll over.

"Andy, we actually have to go to work today," she yelled at him flopping down on the couch and pushing him onto his back. "Get up dude, we gotta go."

"Ugh," he mumbled and his voice sounded all weird and snivelly. "Babe, I think I'm sick."

"You don't sound that sick," April shrugged, tugging him to a sitting position. "C'mon, let's just go-"

And, as if on cue, he sat there and sneezed six times straight. His head smacked into the pit of his elbow and Andy fell back on the pillow, groaning. April just sat there on the edge of the bed and stared at him, unsure what to do. She'd never seen him sick before, she realized - at most he got a light cold if he was ever "sick" and more often than not he just got himself hurt than ill - and didn't know what to do here.

"I'll call myself in." he said slowly, his hand feeling around for his phone on the table next to the bed.

"You'll be fine, c'mon," she insisted but he just made another gross gurgling noise and looked at her like a sad puppy. 

"Here, I got it," he said and picked up the beer on the stand and put against his ear. "Yeah, City Hall? No shoe shines today, there's fireballs in my eyes right now."

"What the hell, you were fine yesterday," she touched his forehead and he was scorching there, "and now you've got a fever. And you're probably gonna throw up in our bed."

"Yeah, that'd suck," he agreed. "Hey babe, could you tell Leslie she can go to work. She doesn't need to be here."

April turned around, actually expecting Leslie to be there but instead saw only the bedroom door closed behind her. Turning back around with wide eyes she saw Andy twiddling his fingers in front of him before laughing and then sneezing again.

"Andy, there's no one-"

"Whoa, you didn't tell me you had a twin!" Andy exclaimed, pointing to an empty space next to where April sat. "That's kinda hot-"

Another sneeze and this time it made Andy's eyes bulge out of his head and his face contort in a way that told April what was next. Dashing to the bathroom, she grabbed the small wastebasket and threw it down next to the bed. Andy immediately turned to his side and hurled into it.

April really had no idea what the hell she was supposed to do, but work didn't seem like it. She kept telling herself it was just a great excuse to get off work for the day, or at least burn some of her backed up hours that needed used, so April called them both in while Andy kept talking about April's hot twin. Some part of April, the part that actually cared, told her to call Ann but that was just as likely to make her throw up. 

Instead of doing any of that she found one of Andy's weird cooling packs that he kept around - apparently Burly bought a bunch of them when Andy continuously injured himself and said that he didn't feel like dealing with all the sprained ankles. It felt way too cold on her hands and when she put it on his forehead Andy sat up screaming.

"Too cold?" she asked, the pack sticking and making a weird ripping sound as she pulled it off.

"Who? No, you're not too old April," Andy muttered, curling into a ball and mumbling more nonsense. "You should tell your sisters to stop following you around though."

The amount of April duplicates he saw kept multiplying and by this point she kind of wanted to see what he was seeing. She could only imagine how confusing, and funny, it must have been seeing six or seven of the same person running after him. April kept thinking of that as she stepped into the kitchen with one of his old t-shirts in hand. They didn't have any rags or dish cloths, mostly because they didn't have dishes, so she ran lukewarm water and got the shirt a little wet and returned to him.

Now he was standing on the bed, naked, with his arms stuck out straight. Andy kept making noises -  _wooshing_ , soaring, and even a  _whirr_ here and there - and swayed like he was flying in the air. When she tapped his thigh he looked down and half-shouted.

"April! I didn't know you could fly!" he laughed. "You shouldn't be up this high, though. I think that's bad for you."

"Andy, lay down," she commanded him, mounting the bed and grabbing his hand to pull him down again.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"It's not-"

"I know I shoulda got my pilot's license by they were super mean so I-"

April put the folded shirt on his forehead, shutting him up as he sighed and his eyes fluttered closed for a second. Opening them back up he picked up the shirt and sniffed it before setting it back on his head. Closing his eyes again, he rested back on the pillow.

"Why did you smell... y'know what, whatever. Enjoy your nap, Captain Dwyer," she told him, patting his arm and covering him up with their blanket. 

"At ease, soldier," he mumbled, barely connected thoughts coming out of him as he eventually went to sleep.

She knew he'd roll over and the shirt would fall of his head, and then the hallucinations and strange behavior would return. Either way she was starting to actually get worried - especially after that little scene - so April pulled out her phone and groaned when she called Ann. A surprised voice answered her and April seriously did want to throw up.

"April?" 

Ugh.

 

* * *

 

"So he's been having hallucinations?" Ann asked her, stepping through their front door.

"Yeah and he's burning up. Feels like he's gonna cook in those covers," she grumbled, trying not to get a headache just from dealing with Ann.

"All right, that's gross," Ann moved the soaked t-shirt, combined sweat and water making it decidedly disgusting, off of him and grimaced. "Why did you call me and not just take him to the hospital?"

"I dunno, that would, like, cost a lot of money and we don't-"

"April, you've got city government healthcare," Ann interrupted, feeling his forehead and her eyes widening. "You'll be fine if you go in to get some flu medicine. It might cost you a little bit, but I doubt it'll be that expensive."

"Will it be more than twenty bucks?" April asked slowly.

"Yeah," Ann chuckled. "It'll probably be a bit more than that."

"Already too much," April shrugged and put on her sneakers. 

"What're you doing?" Ann asked her, incredulous that they couldn't afford a hundred dollar check-up. "I have to go-"

"Then go, I just need to pick up a bunch of DayQuil and those allergy pills," she explained, standing up and grabbing her keys off the table. 

"April, he has the flu not a cold-"

"Whatever, just please don't be in my house anymore," April scrunched her nose up and walked out the bedroom. "You're getting your smell all over here."

When April left Ann was still standing there, confused. Instead of complaining Ann turned and gave Andy a look before leaving, just a few seconds behind April. Thankfully neither of them had to be around each other for much longer, because they were both starting to get irritated just from that few minutes.

Over the course of driving to a pharmacy, picking up all those little purple boxes and a bottle of DayQuil, and going back home April sat wondered what the hell she was doing. She should just take Andy to the hospital and leave him there for a few days, but April was kind of enjoying the bizarre reactions he was having to the fever. Watching her husband try and fly their bed like an airplane surely was just the beginning of things. 

 

* * *

 

When April returned ten minutes later she half-expected Andy to be running around the house in the buff. What she didn't expect was him to have tied a blanket around his neck like a cape, still naked, and running around the backyard in circles. 

"Andy!" she yelled at him, but he kept laughing and running. "Dude, get the hell in here."

"Quick, someone needs my help," Andy stalled in the middle of his pattern and looked over at April. Thankfully people couldn't see him through the trees and brush behind their house, all sweaty and naked covered in a short quilt. "The city of Pawnee needs me, commissioner."

"I'm not-"

"Captain Radical's not gonna let them down," he exclaimed before turning around and backing up a few feet and running. "No way I can let this town down!"

"Andy!"

There was unceremonious crunch when Andy leapt over a bush and smacked into a small tree. Then, like she expected, he yelled out in pain and she immediately rushed over to him. Turns out they might have to go to the hospital anyways, but she'd have to somehow convince Captain  _Radical_ that he wasn't actually in a costume and needed to put on pants before they went. 

April just shook her head continuously, trying to figure out why she had bothered to do any of this for him. Then again, Andy sick was equal parts gross and boring to be around so she wasn't going to stand for this level of "creativity."


	79. Deal With It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a prompt from an anon last night that I couldn't help but write immediately. Requested on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) as "April returns from maternity leave after having Roberta and deals with missing her daughter."
> 
> It got a little weird at the end, but it felt like the natural progression for some reason. Enjoy!

In the weeks leading up to April return from maternity leave, the last thing she would ever expect - even all the way up through the pregnancy -  was that she was going to  _miss_ being around Roberta. Sure, she didn't want to go to work on a regular basis but that was because Ron seemed like he was threatening to leave and let April take over every single day. That sounded like too much responsibility, even for a mother, to handle.

"Babe, she'll just be at daycare," Andy explained, staring at the little girl on April's lap and smiling. "She'll be fine."

"I know she'll be  _fine_ , but I'm gonna miss this," April said with a small smile as Roberta bounced on her knee and kept laughing that same adorable squeak. "I'm gonna hate it. Every single second I'm not around you, Bug."

When she looked back up Andy had that same look on his face whenever she acted like this. He always called her a big softie at heart, but April usually refused that and called him an idiot. Now she was sitting there holding her daughter's hands, bouncing her around just to elicit that laugh, and she couldn't find an excuse. In all honesty she didn't give a shit about excuses. 

No one told her that a kid could be fun. They always seemed like gigantic messes and a massive financial burden that might not be worth it, and while she was definitely a mess and cost  _so much money_ already April just kept thinking about Andy teaching her guitar and she could teach her how to properly prank a phone call or show her the best ways to sneak into City Hall. There were some hallways with minimal camera coverage. 

"Well, I gotta go... like an hour ago, babe," he said, leaning down to give April a kiss and then leave one on Roberta's forehead.

"Yeah, love ya," she said, looking down at the small figure. "Yeah."

She remembered reading something about mothers feeling like their kids were strangers and having an emotional disconnect from them, but April from the day they brought her home to now three months later after her extended leave that no one argued with her over couldn't imagine that for the world. There were just so many things to be done in the day that she'd do with Roberta. Who cared about a little stroller when they had Andy's weird chest-strap thing and she could go to the grocery store with a miniature human strapped to her. 

It was kind of hilarious that she had this much responsibility over a human being, too. At least, up until the part where she remembered that it was a tiny human and she couldn't just ignore her ever. Either way, she was going to have to drop her off at daycare soon and April could only feel a hollow emptiness in her chest.

What made it worse was when she opened up the door to the Pawnee branch of the Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Center for Babies she watched Roberta's little smile that always seemed plastered on fade when April turned to leave. April swore she heard crying but didn't think about it because if she let it continue to bury itself in her she'd cry on her way to work and that just wasn't happening. 

 

* * *

 

That first day was hell.

"Mrs. Ludgate-Dwyer?" a voice answered through the conference call. 

"Sorry, what?" April was still leaning into her hand and trying to remember the question. "Oh, yeah sure... I'll forward the questions to Ron."

April then hung up the call, not caring that she still had another plethora of folders to read off and remember not to burn immediately instead. She just couldn't get that little face, a sudden understanding there when April turned to leave, out of her head and it was driving April insane. The whole object permanence thing was starting to show in their daughter and watching her mother leave her probably wasn't the healthiest thing.

Then again, all this worry April had couldn't be healthy either. So she closed her office door and walked out of the department past curious looks from the new intern and Ron, uncaring about either of them when she went down to the parking lot. When she drove to the daycare she unceremoniously removed her daughter, who gave another bright smile that only young children had, and made a quick stop at home to get the chest strap and a stroller.

When she returned to work an hour later, a baby across her chest, no one said a word and, suddenly, she felt better.

 

* * *

 

"Babe, you can't just not drop her off without telling anybody," Andy told her a week later when he stopped by for lunch.

"Why not? She's my kid," April looked over at the sturdy little stroller and the sleeping face there.

"Aww," Andy's face broke into a smile and he couldn't stop staring at April.

"What? Stop being weird," April deflected, or thought she did.

"You really did miss her," Andy scooted across the little table in the City Hall courtyard. "I didn't realize you'd do this though, honey."

"Yeah, well you didn't have to see her that first day I left her," she shrugged and took a bite of her sandwich before continuing. "She looked so sad and tiny and, ugh, it was depressing."

"Well, I gotta call the daycare and tell them she's not coming back," Andy laughed and turned his phone on, "because there's only so many panicked calls from Ms. Healy I can take."

April smiled and turned to the little stroller, still smiling and watching that little pudgy face no longer creased in a smile. She was too worried about sleeping, her hand stuck in her mouth, to give a damn about anything else. That blaise lack of care about everything around her made babies kind of cool to April, which was just another of her coping mechanisms for giving a shit about something so tiny and adorable and dependent on her.

 

* * *

 

Walking into the conference room, April expected the groans to come and thankfully they didn't. This was the second month of Roberta coming to work with her and, now that Andy solved the issue of a woman losing her mind because she thought she lost one of her wards, things felt better. April spent days in conference calls with herself muted and playing with her daughter's little hands and whispering Neutral Milk Hotel lyrics to her.

When she was better at speaking, April would teach her how to answer the phone. That would be  _amazing_. As her presentation wrapped up, a hand shot up in the back and that same stupid intern - the one with the weird hair, April couldn't remember his name - looked eager to say something.

"Yes, idiot?" April announced, pointing to him.

"It's Jimmy, Ms. Ludgate," he explained and he looked insulted, "but why is there a zoning issue near Lot 52? There's just-"

"A dog park just next to it, and a waste dump right next to  _that_ ," she interrupted him, annoyed at his confident lack of knowledge. "Look, that is an unsafe location for that park and we have to move one or the other. It would take too much time to get rid of the waste dump, so we should just move the dog park to 52."

"Wouldn't that be expensive-?" 

"52's already been set up for some sort of park," April explained, getting more and more agitated. "There's already turf there and it was just in the interim between getting slides or staying a grassy thing."

"What about the current-"

"It's Deputy Director Ludgate-Dwyer, by the way, and you already seem like someone who isn't going to make it very far here," April said to the whole of the meeting. Ron just sat in the back, face unmoving. "I think you'd be better served in sanitation. I'll call your advisors and let them know."

There was a deathly silence after that, no one saying anything at all. When the lights turned back on, no longer dimmed, people filed out save for April and Ron. She gathered up a folder and looked down to see Roberta yawning herself awake and trying to squirm her arms out of the chest strap. Ron stood up and walked over to her with that same even-handed look that April was beginning to get too used to. 

Some part of her missed the Ron that was grooming her into becoming an incredibly inefficient government employee. There weren't as many non-talks and definitely-not-exchanges between them, and April knew it was bound to happen. She actually cared a miniscule bit about her job - really it was barely anything at all, she obviously didn't care about work at all - so Ron could see his influence slipping. Maybe that put him off.

"I wasn't sure about your new stance on professionalism," Ron said slowly, interrupting her material gathering. "To be honest, I think you'll still get bored of this attempt at caring about government work. Maybe it's Leslie's influence, who knows, but I think it'll pass."

April just bit her cheek and avoided his gaze until he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Either way, I can't really think of anyone better to run this stupid little hole-in-the-wall department," he finally said with a small movement of his lips that she knew was his smile.

Trying not to overthink it, April just unstrapped Roberta and put her in the stroller nearer the door. Something about walking around the conference room with her gave a special kind of confidence. Normally April didn't really care about any of that stuff but with her child near her all April could do was imagine herself as an elder for a tribe of warrior-women. The strongest mothers could stand in front of the others, in this case talking about dog parks, while the rest looked on.

She liked thinking of it like that instead of the way that it honestly was more like: watching people look at her like she was insane for doing this. Whatever, there was some lady in Europe that did basically the same thing, so April could do it too. 

Instead of answering him, April put her arms awkwardly around Ron in what was probably the closest hug they had. It felt odd because, and April just realized it, this was the first of a few goodbyes before he left the department for good. He wouldn't be coming back and he'd spend the rest of his life in solitude with his family. That made April smile though, avoiding the prickling in the backs of her eyes.

Remember, no crying. She  _had_ to remember that.

"Thanks, Ron," she told him as flatly as she could. "I'll... see you around."

"Probably not," he nodded and made to leave the conference room.

Before he left, though, he leaned down and made a strange goo-goo noise at Roberta and April could hear a squeal of excitement in response. Smiling, April watched him not even bother to hide the display to her. When the door closed she finally let go.

Roberta started crying not long after, unsure why her mother was doing the same.

 

* * *

 

"So, I guess he's making me director," April explained to Andy at home, Roberta against his chest and playing April's finger. 

"That could be cool, right?" Andy tried, smiling. "It's probably a lot of work and stuff, but it'll be awesome."

"Yeah, but it's gonna be weird, y'know?" she said, focusing on Roberta instead of how bummed this promotion was making her. "I dunno, it's stupid."

"No, it's not. Babe, it's awesome that you're thinking about all this stuff," Andy was still grinning and April couldn't but respond in kind and put her head on his shoulder. "You'll be the best at it, too. Hey, you can still talk to Leslie. She'll be, like, your boss still."

"Technically," April sighed and realized something. "Though  _I'm_ gonna be the first woman Director of the Pawnee Parks Department instead of her."

She moved off of his shoulder and looked at Andy. They both immediately laughed and Roberta made the same squealing noise that they couldn't get enough of. After they eased off, April returned to her position on Andy's shoulder and realized how freaking awesome everything around her was.

She didn't hate her job, she got to see her daughter every single day at work and play with her during and afterward, and Andy. There was always Andy, and he was like this oafish constant that never stopped supporting her. April turned her head on his shoulder and looked up at him, watching him stare down at Roberta with the most incredible, excited look on his face. It somehow made everything better.

"Love you," April said suddenly. "Thanks for being the best husband."

"You're the best wife," he answered back, smiling still and waiting for her to. "I love you too."

And she couldn't repress the curl of her lips in response.


	80. Safety in Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always had a problem with this sort of thing in fanfiction, but I think I should try and write this. I have to see if I can write it appropriately and without it being too problematic. If it is, and there are complaints, this chapter will be deleted. Just a fair warning.
> 
> Continuation of the 'Her' timeline. 
> 
> **Very Serious Warning:** Deals with transphobia, rape, and touches on dysphoria. I am not kidding when I say do what makes _you_ safe.

She walks the four blocks to Leslie's house with tired legs, her hands shaking at her sides, and every sound makes April jump. There isn't much to see in front of her other than the faint light her phone provides, the pitch black skies holding her in a tight grip all the way, and she's glad. At least then if someone she recognizes sees her they won't notice her eyes never blinking and constantly searching over her shoulder.

When April walks into Leslie's house two hours too late, there's an unease in the air. Her boss is sitting there fidgeting with the end of a quilt, her fingers playing at the fabric, until she looks up and walks over to April. She can see the shock in her eyes, but April's entire body is still going through that itself and she never wants to close them again.

"April, you didn't come home," Leslie says slowly, "and you... what happened?"

There isn't an answer.

"Did your dad do this?" Leslie puts a hand on her cheek, touching the bruise there and makes April jerk away.

April darts her eyes to Leslie and shakes her head. Her eyes are bloodshot and there's a streak of scarlet running down from her forehead, but April doesn't say anything. She just shakes her head and walks away from Leslie, unspeaking. Dropping her bag on the floor in the spare room, April falls unceremoniously on the bed and only then does she let go.

A series of soft footfalls approach her, knocking on the door and opening it, but April doesn't let up. She curls up into her pillow in Leslie's house, trying to shut her eyes, but it's too much and she feels unwanted tears and looks up to see Leslie watching her. The other woman sits down on the bed and April moves away when she touches April's shoulder. They sit spaced apart like that and April doesn't do much other than squeeze the pillow tighter and tighter.

"Do you want me to call Andy-"

"No," April says immediately, a shiver of fear going through her. "Don't. Please, don't."

"We should go to the hospital," Leslie says calmly, trying not to elicit another frightened reaction. 

"No."

There's a second where April thinks she'll be made to go. Even in her current state April can still think, and she knows what will come from that. People will know about her, and then there might be more like them, and she'll never feel safe again. Though, if she was honest with herself, being in Leslie's house suddenly feels less safe than before.

Thankfully Leslie nods and yet, for a second, April gets the same stupid thought racing through her head - it's all over. April could barely handle when he touched her as it was, but after that night she couldn't bear to think about him. It just hurt. Everything hurt, honestly, but the thought of Andy finding out made her so scared that she just curled deeper into the pillow. She could still see their faces, and the way they laughed, and their voices.

Everything was still clearly in focus and April can't decide whether she wants to sleep or walk off into the woods and never come back. Leslie sighs and stands up, closing the door behind her and leaving April alone in the dark. It feels better that way, anyways. 

 

* * *

 

The next day, April doesn't go to work. After taking a shivering, cold shower she gets back into the clothes she was wearing before and doesn't think about it anymore. Sitting in her room at Leslie's place, April doesn't do anything all day. In fact, it feels to her like everything's just passing by her at warp speed and barely registering in her mind. 

She listens to music, but all of it's droning and buzzing in her ears and not much else. Eating doesn't seem to be that big of a deal so she just continues to sit in her room, nothing happening. Hours pass and Leslie returns but April doesn't answer her. 

"Oh, I thought you were gone," Leslie sounds relieved when she walks into April's room. "I picked up dinner and one of those croissants you said you liked."

April keeps her mouth shut, eyes focused on the ground.

"Do you want to come out and eat?" she asks her without a hint of judgment in her voice.

"Sure," she eventually gets out.

Whether she actually eats or not isn't up to Leslie, but April knew she had to put some food in her body. If she could get it down once a day then it counted, somewhat, right? So April tells herself she can get away with a little food here and there if it means Leslie will stop asking her what happened. It was too late anyways, and April knew that, so the only benefit of bringing it back up would be dragging that night back to the surface and as far as she was concerned, April didn't consider that much of a benefit.

She eats the croissant and actually enjoys it, and the thought of that makes bile rise to her throat. Taking a deep breath, she waves off the fast food that Leslie grabbed and heads back into the room. Thankfully, or maybe not April still isn't sure, Leslie doesn't walk back in. Turning her phone off was the best idea she's ever had because she knows there's going to be a flood of texts and missed calls, but she's not ready for him yet.

April isn't sure she'll ever be ready to tell him.

 

* * *

 

Andy's sitting at his stand when Leslie walks in alone, again, for the third time that week. He hasn't been able to get a hold of April the entire time and the one time he went to Leslie's there wasn't an answer at the door. He was panicking at this point, but tried not to let all the sweat give him away.

"Hey, Leslie!" he shouts after her, shooting up from his chair and chasing. "Hey!"

"What's up Andy?" she asks him nonchalantly, stopping to walk with him.

"D'you know where April's been, because I've been trying to call her like all weekend and now she's not at work," and he notices Leslie's face crumple, "and she's okay, right?"

"She's... fine," Leslie nods and Andy believes her for half a second.

"Okay," he returns because he doesn't know what else to say. 

"Okay," Leslie repeats and she stops walking to turn to him. "It's not okay, Andy. Something... it's bad."

"What?" Andy can feel his chest light up every time he breathes. "What's wrong? Is she okay? She's okay, you said she was okay. She's okay, Leslie. Right?"

"She came home on Sunday and she... it looked like someone beat her up," Leslie sighs and Andy's eyes search her face for some sort of lie he wants to hear. "April told me not to tell you anything, but she barely eats and she won't talk to me anymore."

"I can't even text her or call," Andy shrugs and scratches the back of his neck. "I thought she just wanted to break up with me, but this is..."

"Here," she pulls a key off of her ring and presents it to him. "Go and talk to her, but make sure she knows you're there. Knock and tell her you're coming in. If she says you're not allowed in, don't go in her room."

Andy just nods and ignores Kyle to put up the "at lunch" sign, despite it being ten in the morning. His car almost refuses to start and Andy's ready to run the whole back to Leslie's but thankfully, after a few more tries, he's driving off to figure out what's going on.

 

* * *

 

Her skin itches when there's a knock at the front door, and April tries to figure out who it could be. The doorbell chimes and it sounds so loud and unwanted that she wants to scream no at it. The word - no - it makes her shake too much, and it makes everything real again. At least a few days afterward April could pretend nothing happened and the bruises on her wrists aren't there, but it never works. 

No matter how hard she tries, and these footsteps are way heavier than Leslie's, it's terrifying and real. The door wasn't busted down and there wasn't a sound of glass breaking but April still shrivels up at the approaching figure. 

"April..." and it's fucking  _Andy_ , "can I come in?"

She freezes up, unsure how to answer that. Of course he'd notice her absence at work and ignoring him altogether, but she hoped against all reality that he'd just let her be for a while. Sadly, she just shakes her head and doesn't know how to answer that. It's thankfully gentler than Andy's usual shouting and general jubilance, but April keeps shaking her head.

"That means no," Andy says into the door. "I'll just... do you want to talk?"

Stilling there, April wants to say that they can talk about it. Something tells her to be okay with Andy - hell, he's accepted her this far and doesn't ignore her when she calls him. The one time she felt safe people took advantage of that falling of her guard, and now she's sitting in the spare room frightened of everything. 

"I guess that means no too," he laughs and she loves the sound but hates that she can't enjoy it. "Um, I miss you. I know it's been, like, four days but you won't answer me."

He sighs again and she can see the door bend a little when he puts his back against it. Or, at least, that's what she assumes is happening. For all she knows he's busting the door down to ask her why she won't let him have her. That night, the one when she left her class and was an hour and a half late, she told Andy he could come over when she texted him to let him know Leslie was asleep. It was kind of exhilarating, to be honest.

It felt like he wanted her then, and now that she's sitting in that room alone he must be frustrated that never came to happen. It likely wouldn't ever happen at this rate, in April's current state, and she can hear him sliding against the door now. He falls to the floor, sitting there against the door, and April doesn't move from the bed.

"I hope you'll talk to me again. I don't want anything else, it'd be cool if you'd talk to me again, but you seem..." Andy says all of this so slowly and quietly April can hear herself shaking with small sobs, "if you're okay I'm okay. I just wanna make sure you're okay."

"Andy?" April finally finds her voice, asking for him like a pleading child. 

"Yeah, hey. What's up?" and he's so excited just at her answering him.

"You can come in," she tells him, crossing her arms.

The door opens slowly after Andy jumps hurriedly, and then when he sees her she can feel all the pity and disgust boring down from him. The bruise on her face yellowed the day before and it still looks horrible, the cut on her head healed but scarring, and she knows her eyes are still devoid of anything. April hates it, all of it, and wishes she could just vanish out of her body and become someone else for a moment. 

That's what she always felt before continuing her transition, but now she's especially unsure that her body is actually  _her_ body. 

"Whoa, April," and Andy walks forward a little too fast, his hand touching her cheek. "Who did this?"

"Don't," April jerks away from him, hating the contact. "Please don't touch me, Andy."

"Oh..." he looks down. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. You just... who did this to you? Was it your dad?"

"No it wasn't my dad," she mumbles, still looking at the same spot he was. "He's... he basically doesn't want anything to do with me anymore, so he doesn't even have the time to beat me anymore."

"April-"

"A couple guys that went to high school with me were walking down the street," she starts to say, unsure where it was all coming from. "They passed me and started talking to me. Catcalling, just dumb stuff, and I ignored them. I thought they left me alone, but they caught up with me."

"Who... tell me, April," and Andy's face is so bright red and his hands are balled in fists. "Babe-"

"They didn't recognize me. At first," April ignores him and continues, the shakes getting so bad she holds onto the edge of the bed for support, "but they did. They figured it out, or guessed it. Then..."

"They did this to you?" Andy asks, attempting to be soft even though she can still see his knuckles threatening to burst through skin. "They beat you up?"

April shakes her head, unable to say the word. Suddenly he's way too close to her, despite not moving at all, and April scoots back to the center of the bed. Curling her knees up, April tries to take deeper breaths and stop the shivering. It isn't even cold. She shouldn't be uncomfortably twitching and vibrating at every sound. 

Andy's face is so damn naive and unable to figure out what she means while she continually shakes her head. He asks her again and she keeps going, refusing to say it. 

"Did they do something else?" Andy hesitates, his voice almost as shaky as she felt. "Did they...?"

"They raped me," she mutters, her chest exploding with every syllable.

April stops and looks up at him. She's sure that there are tears there, and that Andy can see them clearly, and he looks so sad that she doesn't know what to do. But it isn't the kind of disappointment or pity that she expected before. Instead he only looks distantly angry, like he wants to boil over but doesn't know how to, and there's a sense of apology across his face. 

She can almost hear it but doesn't want to. It's not important to her, only that he knows what to do next. 

"Do you- What... what d'you want me to do?" Andy backs up but stays in the room, holding onto the door. "Tell me April... I can, I dunno."

"Leave me alone," she answers him coldly. 

"What?" 

"Don't talk to me, don't touch me," April says slowly. "Just... leave me alone."

"Is that... is that what you want?" and there's more than a hint of sadness in his voice. 

April hesitates to say anything at all. It hurts to even think it, but having him know what happened and always knowing might kill her. She could have just ignored him and told Andy that someone beat her up. Why couldn't she do that? Why the hell wasn't she stronger...

"If you want me to go, I'll go," he mumbles and she can hear him sniff hard, holding back tears. "I'll go, but if you ever want me to come back I'll be there."

"Thanks," she says. "I don't think you should be around me, though."

"Why? Can I know that much?" Andy's so serious right now that April might actually cry again, in front of him. 

"I always make problems like this happen," April wipes at her face and looks up finally. "You'll be better off without me. I'm just a nobody that everyone wants dead. I'm not even a person anymore, I'm an  _it_ -"

"Don't," Andy interrupts her forcefully, a sudden anger in his voice that wasn't present even when he asked about the boys. "You're April, okay? You've always been April, and nobody's changing that. You're the best person I've ever met, you're the coolest, and you're-"

"Stop, just stop it Andy," April raises her hand and just stares at him. "I don't want you around, don't you get it? I'm telling you that you're making a huge mistake. If I'm so awesome, then believe me."

Andy stops for a second and she watches him go from anger to a flat reaction and then eventually his face falls. It's the last thing she wants to do, but if it means he'll forget about her she'll be able to at least ignore any thoughts she has about him. Even remembering the night at all would be worth it if it meant that Andy wouldn't be mad at her. There wasn't much she could tell him in return for accepting her, but now she's even more broken.

That wasn't something Andy deserved. He deserved the whole world and more for everything he did for her, and April can't give that to him. Andy made her smile, made her laugh, and cared about her even after he knew who she had been - something she willingly told him - but she could only make him sad. She could only make him frown in disappointment, clench his fists in anger at someone else, and lose who he was.

It wasn't worth it. She wasn't worth it.

"Okay," Andy finally says. "I'll... um, I'll go. I hope you can get past this."

"I won't," April lashes back without thinking. "I don't think this is something I can get over, Andy."

"I just meant... okay," he nods, turning his back to her. "You're just the kinda person that deserves to smile."

April watches him leave and doesn't say or do anything. When he walks out she hears something out in the living room but doesn't say anything or do anything about that either. After he's left, the doors closing gently behind him, she stands up and leaves the room. Outside, in the den, she sees ripped up books.

There are National Geographics torn into pieces and magazines ripped in half. A basket that sat next to Leslie's couch is crumpled up and peeled apart. When April sits down on the couch she puts her head in her hands and openly sobs, wondering what she's done. Even so, there isn't anything that tells her to let him back in. Leslie gets back home and she's still crying, surrounded by her destroyed stuff, and she sits next to April.

Leaning her head on Leslie's shoulder, this is the only contact that she's been okay with for weeks. It's still a fraction of the comfort she'd get from Andy but April refuses to call him, some obstinate urge to stick by her admittedly stupid decision. But she had to accept her choice, just like Andy accepted her, and it all makes her continually cry like a pathetic child into Leslie's shoulder. By the time she's done April's so tired she just goes to sleep.

There aren't many dreams she can have anymore without waking up in a cold sweat.

 

* * *

 

She wakes up, shivering, and tells herself that she can't call him anymore. All the nights Andy would rush to her side just to comfort her back to a quiet sleep are gone, and April knows it.

It's all her fault.

It's always been her fault.

 

* * *

 

_Hey_

It's the first text Andy sees in weeks. It's small, and it's one word, but it's something. Every day Andy wants to go back and tell April she's going to be okay and that everything will be all right, but he doesn't even believe that. This wasn't something that she could just move on from, and he knows that. Andy also knows that it's entirely up to her how this is handled, but of everything he just misses seeing her and talking.

She might not ever kiss him again, but that's okay. If he got to see her acknowledge him at work again, just to look at him or let him know she's doing okay, then everything would be fine. the last thing he expects is for her to say a word to him again. So he texts her back.

 

* * *

 

For a month, April gets texts asking her how she's doing. Andy asks if she's eating, and if she still goes to Eagleton every other week, and she has to tell herself that it's okay to respond. The only way she could get back to normal, whatever that was, is to hold her head high and move on. Not to forget, but to continue anyways. 

In spite of everything life was throwing at her, and she  _is_ April, she can persevere. She's capable of it, and Andy's just trying to let her know he's there to support her.

 

* * *

 

_Do you wanna talk?_

_YES sry for caps... where?_

_Leslie's place. I let her know you're coming._

_Okay._

 

* * *

 

Now he's in her room and April doesn't feel the need to scream at him. After days of hating herself, April was thankful for the distance. It gave her time to recollect and consider what it was she really wanted and who she really needed in her life.

"You're... is everything cool?" Andy asks her, sitting at the opposite corner of the room. 

"No, but... I'm doing everything we talked about," she smiles weakly, thankful for the missing bruises and the hormone replacements giving her a body she feels more comfortable in. "So... it's getting better."

"That's awesome," he half-shouts, like he's never been happier to hear anything.

"I have a surgery next month," she mumbles, not bothering to segue to her request. "It's okay if you don't want to, but it'd be awesome if you came with me-"

"What time is it? Do you need me to drive you there or back?" Andy immediately jumps up and walks a step forward before thinking better of it and stopping. "I mean, I'll go yeah."

April stands up, smiling brighter this time, and walks over to him. He flinches and she understands that, she hated contact just a month ago, but doesn't stop herself from hugging him. It's nice, and quiet, and the hug doesn't ask anything of either of them so April just sways a little and ignores the prickling in the back of her eyes. She's almost there, and she can almost taste it, and Andy might even be there like he promised.


	81. These Nights Were Ours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) as, essentially, "April feels like shit about post-fitness Andy." (also I may have characterized Andy as demisexual and I'm kind of into that?)
> 
> This was meant to be a precursor to a multi-part thing I'm gonna do for the smut series, but ended up being something a little different. Follows the same theme of depression that I have such a problem with not writing.

It started with little things, dumb minutia that April probably shouldn't have noticed but she does anyways. First he stopped drinking beer as often as usual - four or five every night, at least - and while the little bit of extra money every week was pretty awesome, the lack of drinking was more than weird. The next few days he looked at the pizza she ate longingly and told her he'd find something else to eat. What the hell he expected to find in their house she didn't know, but somehow he gave up on that too.

In some ways she always hoped he'd keep going with the fitness regime he barely started for the police exam, because she knew between the two of them he was  _incredibly_ unhealthy. Now, though, it's different. He walked around with Chris a lot, talking about stupid things that just two weeks ago he would have been too lazy to try, and he always ate lunch with him now.

He left at five in the morning to go to the gym, April usually holding onto him before he got out of bed and complaining with dull noises for him to stay. Of all the things being with him gave her, April was never ungrateful for waking up with him right there. True, she loved the fact that he radiated so much heat that she woke up in a sweat half the time - sometimes hers, most of the time his - but April loathed waking up in a large bed by herself. 

It brought back feelings that April had learned to push away for going on four years, but nonetheless watching Andy walk out of the room with a bag of gym clothes in his hand wasn't the easiest thing in the world. But that was stupid, and she knew it, so April waited in bed, staring out the window and trying to fall back asleep. When he came back he'd obviously showered there, not nearly as caked in gross perspiration as he was just from being a person. He'd flop into bed at seven, and to his credit Andy would turn over and wrap his entire body around her. It wasn't his fault and that made things even worse, at least for April.

That morning when he came back she was curled up in blankets and when he went to move the covers she just snatched them out of his hand and pulled them around her more. 

"Still sleepy? Sorry, babe," Andy muttered, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I think I need to eat anyways. You want something? Chris gave me this awesome recipe for a, like, super healthy milkshake with nuts and stuff."

"Ugh," she grunted in response, burying her head into the cocoon of blankets. 

"Nah, that's fair. It tasted gross anyways," he laughed and stood up. "I could make you eggs or something?"

"No," April returned sourly, trying to keep her face hidden from him this early. 

"Oh, okay," he said cheerily.

Before he left the room he moved to where she was wrapped in blankets and tried to find a good angle to try and give her a morning kiss. All he could find was her forehead and she refused to move at all, groaning at him when he tried to unravel a bit of the covers. 

"You always liked morning snuggles," he pouted, clearly trying to get her to come out. "Now you won't even kiss me, what's up babe?"

"Nothing Andy," she said in the most put-on, chipper voice she could muster. "I'm swell. I'm fantastic. Go make breakfast."

"You... you seem bummed out about something," he nodded and sat down next to her. "What's up, babe?"

"I told you I'm fine," she mumbled.

"Which means you're bummed out. You never tell me when you're happy, you just... are," he shrugged and made to put a hand on her but pulled back. "I know I'm stupid and you think I don't pay attention to stuff, and that's probably fair-"

"I don't-"

"But you always say that when you're mad at me," April peeked out of the bundle to stare at him looking away from her. "I dunno what I did, like  _at all_ , but uh... I guess I'll go make breakfast."

So April watched him leave again, shoulders slumped and less excited about seemingly everything than before. She felt more comfortable in that haphazard mess of blankets than with her husband and it just made April furious - at herself, at him, at everyone and everything. Part of her wanted to be okay with watching him so enthused about life and getting fit but, somewhere, she hated it.

Maybe it was because, the day before, she remembered sitting in on a forum with Andy. Afterwards, despite April standing right next to him and their hands clearly swinging back and forth together, two different women walked up and did the most obvious ogling she'd ever seen. Poor, oblivious Andy just smiled and continued talking to April. It was fine, they were stupid and Andy loved  _her_ so she didn't have much of a problem with any of that. Hell, Andy put up with that creep Harris all the time because he knew that she wasn't going to ditch him for some thirty-year old stoner way into Phish.

When they brought up relocating that unfortunate art house movie rental place turned porn peddler, and a few of Pawnee's very own residential porn actresses brought up their points, she watched Andy pay attention to what they were saying. Or to their boobs, April wasn't sure.

Either way, when they walked past them talking where the older women had been ignored Andy turned to them and smiled. Pulling him back to her, April kissed him obviously in front of the several tall, absurdly done-up blondes that gave April a look. There were some benefits to Andy attempting to get in shape, but now that he'd gone more than a few times and given up and it was clearly showing through his goofy short-sleeve and tie ensemble April knew this wasn't one of them. 

 

* * *

 

"Hey babe?" Andy was putting on his socks while April sat in the closet putting clothes on with barely any light.

"Yeah?" she tried to remain even.

The last few days any time Andy asked her something she felt like snapping back. There wasn't any rhyme or reason to it, just that April was mad at  _something_. Before she thought it was insecurity in seeing him leave her every morning but she got over that quickly enough. It wasn't like he was actually leaving. He literally just went to go work out and then came back; it was stupid of her to think like that, anyways.

Then she thought it was because he was interested in other women. Whatever strange part of her brain believed that must have died because the night after the porn forum debacle, April literally just whispered sex in his ear and he practically leapt into bed with her. Well, no. He quite literally leapt into bed with her. That wasn't a night she was going to forget soon, and although sex shouldn't have been a measurement for their relationship April knew how Andy worked.

One time, so long ago that she could barely even remember it, they were trying to come up with a third to invite into the bedroom. April, jokingly and with a bit of anger, suggested Ann to him and actually felt him go limp the moment the name escaped her lips. It was kind of endearing knowing that, despite how attractive Ann was, Andy stopped thinking like that when any romantic feelings died out between them. It was strange, and they never agreed on another person to join them, but the sex was still fantastic and April would remember that little nugget forever.

The problem was something else, something directed inward, and April hated  _that_ even more.

"How come you always change in the closet?" he asked candidly, like only Andy could.

"You always look at me," she answered without thinking, smacking her forehead lightly.

"Yeah... you always said that was creepy," he chuckled and she wanted to but couldn't. "I thought you liked to do it?"

"Shut up," she laughed and could hear him trying not to burst out into similar laughter. 

"Oh come on," he finally subsided and asked her a bit more seriously this time. "You never show me your new underwear either."

"Because that's stupid, and why should you care what underwear I've got on?" she bit back, coldly trying to distance herself from this conversation.

"Because sometimes you don't wear any..." he trailed off with a sing-song voice and she could practically hear the smile in his voice. "And then work's  _pretty_ cool."

"And super uncomfortable," April hissed. 

Andy was silent then and she could hear the bed give a squeak like his weight lifted off of it. That telltale movement of springs was quieter every week now, and April opened the closet door to look out. Peeking around the edge of the sliding door, the door to the bedroom was closed and no one was in there. Stepping out, she took her clothes with her and got back to dressing.

When she had pulled on her jeans for the day and was about to put a shirt on she looked down at her stomach. Andy's was starting to flatten out and the awesomely fluffy fat there was making way for lean skin and his muscles becoming more prominent, and hers was just kind of there. April knew she wasn't necessarily fat, but she also had a lot of loose-fitting shirts and wore lots of those thin cardigans for a reason. 

She squeezed the bit of fat around her bellybutton and sighed. Bending over to pick up her shirt she heard a whistle behind her and turned around quickly to see Andy. She still wasn't wearing a shirt and his eyes were glued to her body. Andy's face was still plastered in a smile even as she played with the sleeves of the shirt still in her hand.

"Babe, you are so hot," he said quietly, clearly meaning that to be some kind of romantic gesture.

"You're just saying that because you were staring at my ass," she mumbled, "and I'm not wearing a shirt either."

"What?" he walked forward and took the shirt out of her hand, unfolding it and giving it back. "You're beautiful, babe. Like, all the time. No matter what."

"Because we always do it in the dark," she lashed back, putting the shirt on over her head and struggling until Andy moved one of the sleeve holes over a bit. 

"You asked me to do that," he muttered and she could see his face fall through the thin fabric.

"We don't have to anymore," April suggested, shrugging the shirt on the rest of the way. "Like-"

"Does that mean we can do it in the middle of the day again?" he said happily, nearly bouncing on his feet. "Like, sex once a day is cool and all but I really miss those lunch break quickies..."

"Though you can't really call them that," she smiled and moved closer to him, accepting his even stronger arms and hands around her waist. 

"Yeah, last time you were... what? Twenty minutes late?" he chuckled and bent down to kiss her on the lips, hard. 

"I think they're called nooners anyways," April laughed into his neck, hugging him. "I don't think you're supposed to plan them so much, though."

Andy laughed and picked her up off her feet, moving closer to the bed. They both fell onto the sheets quietly in the morning, and April didn't remember a time when he was so enthusiastic. Even so, it just made her hate herself even more. 

When she stood up and had to find the clothes she'd just put on, only to have them torn off anyways, having to get dressed  _again_ just felt like a chore. She turned around and watched Andy stare lovingly at her the whole time and for a second April actually sighed. Not in relief, or like some great weight was lifted off her, but because she was who he had. The only thought that ran through her mind, and it was so damn familiar and yet old it hurt, was just that - infuriating:

_You can do so much better._

 

* * *

 

It started to become incredibly noticeable a month after that morning, the first time April realized what she really hated in this whole sequence of events. Andy's stricter diet and refusal to skip any day - early in the morning and just after their "lunch" breaks that became longer and longer with each week - made his chest swell, and his stomach stopped really being that. It was more like a finely-toned six-pack and in a lot of ways, April was glad she got to enjoy that.

He could always carry her around and give her piggyback rides, but that was mostly on account of April just being pretty small. Now he could easily pick her up with an arm and carry her by his side if he wanted to. Sex was never in the dark anymore, and partly it was because April felt a selfish desire there. Sure she could feel his back's muscles tighten and generally do whatever weird rippling that those stupid smut books tried to make sense of, but watching him was something completely different.

And, in the end, it led to April sitting in the bathroom now. Something as stupid as Andy getting in shape made her realize more about herself than April thought possible. And in the end, it was just so stupid. She sat on the edge of the sink with her head in her hands, trying to figure out a way to explain this to Andy. 

"Babe, why are you doing this?" he sounded like tears were forming in his eyes, his voice all babbling and whiny. "Did I do something?"

"No, it's not you," she answered him with a hoarse yell.

She'd been locked in there for two hours now, crying. It was so fucking  _stupid_. It all made no sense, and she wasn't some stupid hormonal teenager. April Ludgate-Dwyer, possibly soon to be just Ludgate, didn't cry and she definitely didn't cry about leaving her husband.

"Is it somebody else?" Andy's so quiet that she knows he's standing right next to the door. "I mean, I get it. I don't understand why someone as perfect as you would-"

"That's why!" she jumped up from the sink. She moved to the door but only yelled into it instead of opening. "That's why, Andy. I'm not perfect, okay? Stop saying that!"

"So... I don't get this at all," he sniffed and April wanted to put her fist through the door just to get him to stop being so  _Andy_ , "so you wanna get actual-divorced because..."

"You think I'm the best person ever, and we both know that's not true," she huffed out with uneven breaths. 

"But you are-"

"You're supposed to love me even though I'm fucked up," April tried explaining to him, "but you're so...  _stupid_ that you think I'm anything else."

She couldn't find another word to describe what Andy was. Amazing? She couldn't say he was being "so Andy" because the only person that made any sense to was her, so she had to settle with something demeaning. It was always the best way to deflect any actual emotion. So she chose stupid. He wasn't an incredibly smart person, but April felt a backlash in her chest from using that word towards him. 

That awful return in her body was familiar. It used to be what April felt when she made fun of him so many years ago. Like an old friend with excessive taste in drugs, pushing them on her with a fervent gleam in his eyes, April remembered that feeling all too well. 

It was the fucking  _worst_.

"Oh," is all he said in response.

_Oh._

Not like the kind of response she expected. April expected him to fight back, like movies and books always told her to anticipate. He was the guy with a heart of gold who was in love with her, not the successful woman or whatever trope she wanted to apply to herself but  _just_ April. It was his job to fight back.

But he didn't. Just  _oh_. That silly little noise, more that than a word, sounded like exactly what Andy expected. 

"You get it now, don't you?" she pushed her forehead against the door and let it support her weight as April looked at the tiles on the floor. "You get it-"

"Yeah, I get it," Andy mumbled on the other side. "It's okay."

"What?" 

April knew what was coming next - he'd say that he wasn't ever worth her. That was the other branch for this sort of thing, wasn't it? Then she could be offended that he's turning her own insecurities into fodder for him to reverse her decision. It was more complicated than April really expected from Andy, but it was always the thing that irked her more than anything else in these kinds of situations. It was like turning the tables, only that the guy was marginalizing her own discomfort for his.

She was expected to comfort him afterwards. Andy, the big goof - now the big, muscled goof - knew how to play her. Obviously that's how it would work.

"I knew you were bummed out about something, but I didn't know what it was," he started to explain. "You never tell me how you're doing unless you're annoyed or bummed out. And you kept telling me that you're happy, and you're happy being around me, and that me getting fit was cool."

"Andy-"

"I guess I forgot to actually think," he laughed. "Y'know, I do that a lot. You said it best: I'm stupid."

"You're not stupid," April growled through the door, opening it quickly. "You're not-"

His face was so broken, barely held together, that April stopped midway through opening. His hands were at his sides, not moving, and his shoulders slumped as much as the burly angles could look like a slump. 

April's cheeks heated up immediately, and that flame of anger pointed back at her like it always did. It was always her fault. Always her fucking problem,  _always_ hers. It was never Andy. It was always her.

"Don't, babe, don't," she walked forward and her hands moved up to his face, brushing. "Don't cry, Andy."

"Sorry, I guess I'm just a little... I dunno, bummed feels like a shitty way to describe it," he gave a meek laugh and April followed suit.

"Just please don't cry, okay?" she asked him genuinely, standing up on her toes to kiss him softly.

"I don't wanna do this," Andy's voice shook and April can't stop hating herself for it. "It's so dumb-"

"You know you can do better, right?" April stroked his cheek and tried to maintain a level voice. "You  _can_. You can do so much better. Someone who's not broken and depressed all the time, and someone who... just isn't like me."

"But I don't want anyone else, April," he wouldn't stop looking at her and that might have just made it impossible. "I don't, I swear."

"I believe you," she said and kissed him again, selfishly. "I think that's the problem."

"Can I do anything?" Andy asked with a tone that April had never heard before. 

It wasn't like a kid that had his favorite toy taken away. He didn't sound like he was mad, or disappointed, or anything really. Andy just sounded... gone. Like he was defeated for the last time and every bit of him just left his voice altogether in that one question. 

"What?" April asked him again.

"What can I do to make you stay?" he said again in that same tone, all hope gone. "I'll do whatever you want me to. I'll stop going to the gym, I'll be here every morning with you. If you want me to get another job, I can! I'll stop spending money on games and I can-"

April kissed him yet again. She didn't want him to speak anymore, because she could feel those same tears welling up. The last thing she wanted was to see him crying, but making him watch her bawl would just turn into a nightmare. It wasn't ever going to make sense to her, but April didn't want to leave. Yet, she knew she should. That was the best thing for both of them - for Andy, he actually did deserve more. 

For her, any amount of time with him was undeserved. No matter what he said, April wasn't the kind of person that got to have people like him in her life. It was some kind of freak accident, really, and that's all it should have ever been. She just couldn't imagine her life without him, and that was a massive problem. The moment he realized she wasn't worth it, he'd leave - it was only rational, despite what she told herself every day about Andy - and then she'd only have memories.

So why deal with that then when she could break away herself? And why couldn't she stop kissing Andy?

"Just stay one more night, please," Andy almost choked on his words. "Please, please. April, just... let me explain it to you."

Everything in her head wanted to argue. She wanted to argue so damn bad, but just couldn't.

 

* * *

 

For a week, April couldn't argue with him. 

He smothered her in praise every morning, barely saying anything that wasn't directed at her. It felt a little creepy, to be honest. Then again, she didn't want it to end April just knew it had to. But then a week turned into two weeks. Soon, she didn't even remember wanting to argue about it.

Two weeks, a month. Andy kept going to the gym because she told him to, and kept telling him how good he was looking. One month melted away and she didn't want to say another word about it, almost like a stray decision rather than an ever present doubt in her chest. That night, the first day of the second month she gave up arguing, they were in bed and April latched onto him with her arms around his waist.

"I think about it all the time," she murmured in the dark, quiet and soft. 

"Sorry," Andy was trying his best, and she knew it. 

"It's dumb, I know, but I still think about it," April couldn't stop holding onto him despite her words. "Like when you'll just realize I'm no good-"

"Don't say stuff like that, honey," he turned around and nuzzled her, their noses touching before he moved to kiss her neck. "I love you so much. Like, more than anyone or anything else ever."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you'll always-"

"Forever," he continued, moving back to her lips. "April, forever. Forever, and if I have to tell you that every morning then okay. If I have to show you, every night that's okay."

He punctuated that by moving them closer and kissing her harder. His hands were moving up to cup her face before he broke off.

"If you ever think like that, call me. Tell me about it, just don't let it sit," he offered and let his thumb roll over her cheek. "We can talk about it, or not. Or whatever. I just don't want you to think you're going through this alone."

April smiled, against all hope, and couldn't stop a rolling streak of wetness along her cheek from falling. Andy's thumb caught it and wiped away for her, moving closer to kiss her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parks tonight. Parks TONIGHT. PARKS TONIGHT. **_PARKSTONIGHT._**


	82. Big Decisions Made Quickly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor S7 spoilers. Like, barely any.
> 
> I need this. Sure, I'm getting a little too attached to the already popular "April's pregnant" theory.

When Andy finally came home and explained what was going on - and why he didn't even bother to call her - April was just happy to have him home. Dumb things like existential doubt were starting to creep up, and she needed him there to be a big shoulder to lean on and thank goodness he was so good at being that for her. After spending the day thinking what she wanted was always some childhood fantasy of being a mortician, April didn't know what she wanted.

"Babe, you gotta see all this fan mail," Andy walked into the living room with a crate in his hands. "I didn't realize the show would be this popular."

"That's awesome," she said quietly, pursing her lips and staring at her nails.

Andy sat down next to her and put the box on the floor, but turned to look at her. Andy gave her that age old look that asked the question before he had to. He always knew voicing it would make April uncomfortable and a little anxious, so this was easier on them.

"D'you like working in government, kind of?" April asked him, biting the inside of her cheek.

"Yeah, it's awesome," Andy nodded excitedly. "Babe, you seriously gotta look at some of this stuff."

"Andy, this is important," she pouted and rolled her eyes, but looked anyways. April pointed to one of the letters that had gobs of paint all over it. "What's that one?"

"Sometimes I get art from the kids," he opened it up and there was a crude fingerpainting of a person that had 'Johnny Karate' declared in all caps over him. "This is supposed to be me, I guess."

"That's... cute," she acknowledged and found she didn't mind saying it.

Andy however just stared at her with that word until she scoffed and picked up another one of the fan letters. Cycling through most of them, Andy kept pointing out the bad art and April tried to decipher all the misspelled things, thankful for when they found a typed letter that someone's parents obviously sent. After going through a bunch of them, they both tired of it. 

Lounging against the couch, almost falling off of the couch, Andy sat there and looked happy. April couldn't help but notice how damn happy he always was. That was Andy's personality, though. It wasn't like he couldn't be serious or anything, but his default state was boundlessly energetic and enthusiastic about everything. Even in work he found his, and April might admit she's really jealous over that. Then again, he was her husband and best friend - seeing him this happy was just one of the best benefits of those relationships.

"You love Johnny Karate, don't you?" April noted, nodding slowly.

"Yeah, it's so much fun! Every day, those stupid sets... and when I do live shows the kids are so pumped it makes me feel the best," Andy said quickly, nodding with her. April just bit her lip and kept searching her thoughts. "Why, what's up?"

"I think I wanna quit working for the National Parks," April shrugged. "I dunno... I'm just never excited to work there. Not that I don't like always being around Leslie, but-"

"So what're you thinking of doing?" Andy asked seriously, his arm automatically rubbing her shoulder. 

"Really, just like that?" April gave him a look and scooted closer so that his arm was flat against her back. "You're not gonna ask what made me think this or... anything? Just like that, Andy?"

"Well, I mean I wanna know that stuff too," Andy laughed and continued his motions, "but it's your decision, babe. I want you to be happy, so do what you gotta do to be happy."

"I love you," she murmured, dropping her head on his shoulder.

"Love you too," he kissed the side of her head and picked up another fan letter. "Hey, look. This one asked if Johnny Karate has any kids. 'Dear Mr. Karate-'"

"That's sweet," April interrupted and listened to him read the letter.

A lot of it was nonsense, but the kid - or not, April didn't want to think about Andy's demographics numbers and how bizarre those were - said he was jealous that Johnny Karate got to be somebody's dad and not his. Most of the letter was talking about how fun it would be to play around on set every day, and to be called Baby Karate.

And it hit April.

She saw Andy walking on set, his arm in a sling again because that seemed to be his natural state too, with a little human holding onto his finger with their entire little hand. They sat around and ate lunch together and Andy always babbled to her, because April liked that idea, and when the song segment of the show came on she was always clapping and sitting right next to her dad.

_Her dad._

"Andy," April turned to him quickly.

"What's up, babe?" he asked her nonchalantly, clearly not ready.

"I think I know what I wanna do," she was all smiles and didn't give a shit - they were at home, it was private. "It's not a job, but... I mean, it's definitely a job but not like I thought I wanted."

"Yeah, what's that?" Andy looked down at her. 

"You still think about kids?" she said a little shakily, an unsure curl to her lips barely there. 

If she was nervous, Andy's face going from confusion to realization and then when he stood up, shouting, should have been answer enough. Him standing up, picking her up and spinning them around, and then subsequently getting so dizzy he could barely walk, definitely answered her question. 


	83. Andy Dwyer, Spider-Killer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing last Thursday! I'm just starting my new semester and I need to figure out how to make my schedule work. I'll keep you updated when I figure out what works best.
> 
> Requested anonymously as a bit on April's arachnophobia.

"Andy!" April shouted out from the bathroom, her voice uncharacteristically shrill. "Andy, Andy, Andy...!"

She kept screaming and he immediately dashed in, expecting something a whole lot worse than an empty room. He swore to protect her and wasn't going to take that responsibility lightly, hell it was his freaking wedding vow, so Andy scanned the room again. All he saw was April peeking out over the shower curtain wrapped around her body, wet hair flat against her back, and pointing at a towel on a bar.

"There!" she yelled, stabbing her finger at the towel. "There, Andy... it's there!"

"What?" he asked loudly, so confused about everything that was happening.

"Spider. There's a spider, there!" she explained, screeching.

"Oh right, you've got Jeff Daniels syndrome," he nodded and walked towards the towel.

"What are you talking about?" she said a little quieter but still clearly agitated. 

"Y'know, like in  _Arachnophobia_! Jeff Daniels and his kid are afraid of spiders," he laughed. "Just like you. What's that called, again?"

April just looked at him, exasperated, and pointed at the towel again. He nodded and walked over, pulling the towel from the bar. When he did April shifted the shower curtain closer to her, eyes still staring, and must have noticed the black spot scuttling down the wall behind the towel. Her eyes bulged out of her head when it moved towards the tub.

" _Andy_!" she screeched and turned the shower on.

Water sprayed the edge of the tub, sprinkling out onto the floor and Andy nearly slipped and fell in his newly soaked socks. Slamming his hand down on the edge of the tub, Andy pulled back to look at the splotch on his hand, April finally quieting and turning off the water. 

"Ew," he showed her his hand but April definitely didn't want to see it.

Looking around for any others, Andy finally moved to wash the eight-legged mess off of his hand while April slowly got out of the shower. She wrapped herself in the towel and shakily pulled at the cabinet doors underneath the sink. When it was clear she was struggling Andy brushed her aside and pulled out her hair dryer he knew she was trying to get to. 

"No spiders down there," he commented, grinning broadly. 

April took the dryer and Andy assumed his job was done. A-plus Dwyer, he thought to himself smugly as he made to turn and leave the bathroom. Instead April tugged his sleeve and when he looked back she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tight.

"Thanks," she said quietly, like it hurt to admit. 

"For what, I just killed a spider..." he trailed off, confused. "You coulda done it, too-"

"Dude, no I couldn't," she laughed and finally put her chin on his chest and looked up at him.

"Why are you so bugged by spiders?" Andy chuckled, meeting her eyes and staring downward a bit. 

"One time when I was really young, a spider crawled into my soup," her voice was shaky and Andy was starting to get grossed out.

"Gotcha," he interrupted, smiling when she did.

"Love you, babe," she squeezed him closer, "my squishy, brave Spider-Killer."

"Love you too," he answered, "my little, beautiful wife who's _super_ scared of spiders."

April just smacked his arm but leant up to kiss him, closing the door behind him as she went to drying her hair. Andy sat on the couch, returning to his video game when a thought jumped into his head. It was the sort of thing that just snuck in and never really left, all annoying and weird and clingy. Still, he didn't ignore it and tried to figure out what to tell April.

When she walked out of the bathroom, naked, and back to their bedroom he just turned and watched her walk away. She called him an idiot but didn't bother telling him to look away, still walking slowly to the bedroom. Returning fully clothed, she sat down next to him on the couch with a soft thump.

"Hey, babe," he said immediately, looking at her.

"What's up?" she asked and Andy thought she just forgot about everything that just happened.

"One time when I was... uh, six, my brothers locked me in the pantry," he started to explain, not looking away from her. 

"What?" April was obviously confused but he continued anyways.

"It was super small, like tiny and I was already pretty fat," he joked and looked at her for a laugh but she just had this quizzical expression as he talked. "They forgot about me and went to school, so I was kind of in there all day, screaming and crying for my mom."

"Andy-"

"I dunno what it's called but I hate being in places like that, all squeezed tight and close and dark," he shrugged but didn't look away. 

"Why are you telling me that?" April finally got a word in and shook her head a little, confused. 

"Because I'm sorry for making fun of you," Andy scrunched his face up and continued, "and I, uh, didn't know how seriously spooked you were. So now you know what I'm afraid of."

He half expected her to make fun of him now, which was only fair. After he learned she was afraid of spiders, Andy put a bunch of plastic spiders on strings and hung them in the shower. She yelled at him for weeks after that, and it's what led him to thinking it was more than just a bit of fear.

Instead April's face had that smile that was fighting to make its way on her face, that same little adorable smirk he always called her out on, and then she moved closer to him and dropped her head on his shoulder. Turning back to the TV, Andy smiled and felt even better about how everything turned out. Judging by April's closeness and her grin when she kissed him not long after that, she appreciated the thought too.

Was there anything better than an A-plus? Plus, plus? Andy wasn't sure, he'd never gotten one of those before. 


	84. My Only Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) as a role reversal of ch20.

Throughout the day, Andy watches April call people and ignore him. She refuses to say anything to him, flitting in and out of the house for hours at a time and for a lot of that time he's worried. Andy's never seen her like this - all worked up about pretty much anything, apparently willingly calling other people to actually  _talk_ to them about something important, and generally constantly agitated. Well, that's untrue because he's seen her agitated at him all the time.

Usually they worked through that, but this time she's nearly sprinting out of the house and driving around Pawnee apparently. When he goes out to try and grab something to eat he has to order in because the car's gone. April hated driving, especially when she could pass it off on Andy, so it was especially strange.

In the hour where the Chinese food comes and April's fried rice goes untouched, Andy can't help but worry more. She's a grown woman with her own life, he knows that on some level, but not being party at all to what she's up to just makes him uncomfortable. He has to slap himself out of that mentality because it sounds like April's not allowed to do anything without consulting him first, and Andy thinks that sounds stupid. If she finds a dog in a park and rolls around without him, that's his fault not her problem.

And now Andy can't stop thinking about rolling around with April and a dog in a park and it's awesome. Then he can't stop thinking about rolling around with just April and he really wishes she was there. But she doesn't come home for another hour and he's getting bored, and tired, so Andy just goes to sleep confused. He sends out a text asking her if she's okay and watches his phone until he drifts off.

 

* * *

 

"Andy," April shakes him quickly, and he only realizes what's happening when she's dragging him out of bed. "Andy, c'mon. We gotta go."

"Why? Wh... where you been, babe?" Andy's head is full of questions he wants to ask but can't voice them. He can't even remember what time it is. "What time is it? Where're we going?"

"Babe," she turns and grabs his face, "this is important and I'll explain it to you. You trust me, right?"

Andy nods and she smiles wide in response. That's all he really needed to see but she nods and takes his hand, running out to the car. Andy's in his sweatpants and a thin shirt but he generates so much heat for himself that he doesn't even register how frigid it is outside. April's driving them down a street not long after that and he can hear her calling someone, but Andy's drifting off again.

In sleep he can half make out what she's saying, but mostly all he can tell is that April sounds  _scared_. That jolts him awake and he feels like he's never been tired in his life at that small tremble in her voice, turning to look at her on the phone. They're stopped at the side of the road somewhere and April's head is in her hand while she speaks.

"I know, mom," she says slowly and blinks way too fast for comfort. "I just... I thought maybe we'd find him, okay? I'll call you later."

She hangs up and bumps her head on the steering wheel twice before sitting straight up again. 

"What's up?" Andy asks cautiously, in a soft voice. 

April turns and gives him a brief look past her masquerade before her face is completely even again. "Nothing," she says.

"Obviously not," he gives a small laugh but April doesn't return it. "Hey, babe, you can tell me anything. You know that right?"

Instead of saying a word, April lunges over to him and wraps Andy in a close hug. From their positions in the car it has to be uncomfortable for her, but April keeps her arms around him and Andy can only return it without asking anything. If that's what she needed that's cool, and if she needed to just be away from him for a little bit that's cool too. He knew that if April wanted to come back she would, and he didn't think it was anything  _that_ serious.

That still didn't explain who they were supposed to be finding, like April said to her mom. Andy looked down at her and asked about it, confused. When April just sighed he tilted his head like he wasn't going to be taking that for an answer, or the shrug she gives him afterwards.

"Orin likes to take walks," she starts with a small voice until she's saying things so fast that she's running out of breath, "and it's not weird for him to be gone for, like, a week but his parents haven't seen him in a month. He doesn't text me back or anything and he's been going for this walk since then, and he's my friend and no one's seen him, and I-"

"So we're looking for Orin?" Andy interrupts seriously.

"Yeah," she finishes, out of breath from her previous constant barrage.

"Why didn't you ask me to help you before?" and it's the dumbest thing to him that she ignored him for a while.

"Didn't think you'd want to help me find a guy," she laughs, "and that sounds really stupid all of a sudden."

Andy laughs along with her. "Yeah, it does sound real stupid babe," he finishes.

"It sounded better in my head," she shrugs and moves back to the driver's seat. "I mean, he's my friend Andy. I didn't have too many of those for a long time. Yeah, he's creepy and weird but he's my creepy and weird friend."

"Sure," Andy nods, like he knows he's supposed to because telling her she doesn't need to say this isn't the right thing. He thinks. Andy isn't sure, so he goes with his gut.

"He was kind of my only friend for a  _long_ time," she grips the wheel and shakes her head, "and I just wanna make sure he's okay. He's probably just in the woods, finding a fitting cave dwelling or something."

"So are we gonna go look for him?" Andy asks her, giving April's hand a squeeze and smiling. She returns it and nods. 

The car starts up and they drive around the outskirts of Pawnee for a few hours before they both get tired. Nothing noteworthy or any clues show up, like they anticipated a trail of blood to lead them to his hideout or something. In the morning, they agree, they'll scour the woods where April thinks he could possibly be. She thanks him before they go to sleep in the car, moving over to the passenger side with him and sleeping in his lap.

 

* * *

 

They search the woods, through the trees that April says he always hides in. She tells Andy about a treefort they made when they were thirteen, and how April never heard him speak the first year she knew him, and showed him where the carpet they threw on a flat branch used to be. He listens as she goes on and on, looking behind every bush and in every crevice that looks remotely like a cave. Each bit of the forest seems to spark a memory for her and Andy likes knowing these things about her.

Maybe one day, Andy thinks, he'll take her to his mom's house and show her all the places he used to get stuck. Like the stairwell's rails where he got his head stuck, or the tree where he got his ankle caught on a branch and hung like that for an hour, and all of that stuff. It dawns on Andy that they might not find Orin today but he doesn't say anything to April, not wanting to destroy her reminiscence.

When they don't find him for another day, April stops talking. 

When they get back to the car she breaks down, and Andy's never seen her cry before in his whole life. It's really uncomfortable because he doesn't have any idea what to do for her - for April it could be anything under the sun and he'd still probably get it wrong. A small side of him wonders if she did this when he first deflected her advances and that makes him scoot her over onto his lap and put his arms around her in a hug.

"We'll try tomorrow," he says to her after she's stopped crying and April's just staring at him silently.

"Yeah?" her voice is hoarse and tired, and it hurts to hear.

"Yeah, tomorrow and we'll put out all those bulletins and get everyone in the whole friggin' country to look for him," Andy waves his hands around him before calming down. 

"This is why I love you," she says quietly, without looking away. 

"Yeah, you too," he pulls her back into a hug and they sit like that for a while, unspeaking, until April falls asleep and Andy tries his best to get comfortable in the car.


	85. Leslie Talks Like She Knows Him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had this idea in my head for a while. Definitely April/Andy but mostly April and Leslie stuff. 
> 
> Would take place around "Time Capsule."

To be honest, April hated him. He was quiet and soft spoken all the time, he always spoke in Spanish and April's was getting rusty and her accent sucked anymore, not to mention he smelled nice. That might have been the worst part of it all - he smelled like cologne, fresh clothes, and sometimes booze. She much preferred sweat, dirt, and constant alcohol smells.

Either way, it was almost worth watching Andy work for her like this. In some ways it was funny, and in others she hated herself for doing it, but she'd made the decision and for once April was going to stick to it. No one could say anything to her that would make her ditch Eduardo in a flash. No one had to know that she hated doing this to him - that first time watching his face fall took an intense will to keep her face even.

Good thing April's gotten good at hiding. Yeah, good she thinks. It's  _great_.

But there was somebody that acted differently around April other than Andy. Obviously Ron wasn't going to get in her personal business after her threats of unleashing the Duke on the unsuspecting Parks department, Jerry too frightened to do anything other than wonder why there's suddenly an attractive Venezuelan man with her all the time, and Donna didn't give a shit.

Leslie, though, she was different. She always was, and April hated  _that_ more than anything. On top of Andy turning around from heartbroken to determined, there was Leslie who seemed to only talk to her when she really needed help. The occasional compliments in the morning, or the long schpiels about April's budding responsibilities, and all of that stuff that she would adamantly refuse that she loved - who doesn't love being told they look fantastic at 9AM by Leslie Knope, honestly - just stopped.

Unexpected lunches were gone. Sudden breakfast food meetings where April got a free muffin and coffee didn't happen anymore. Leslie didn't even say anything about the little necklace with a reproduction of the severed head of Bono on it. Bono's Head always got her attention, usually to tell April to take it off, and now – nothing. It was confusing, and half the time she anticipated Leslie telling her it was just a bad day or things were going slowly in getting the department up and running again.

But, there wasn't any of that. Instead, there was radio silence.

Except on one day before they set up the final plans for the Pawnee Time Capsule that basically was going to have a bunch of useless crap in it before Leslie had one of her brilliant ideas, and then that silence broke. April sat on her desk with Eduardo and was getting tired of being around him so she told him to go wait in the car. In reality she was going to leave him there all day, getting amused at how easily she could play two guys  _at the same time_  and enjoying herself until Leslie called her into her office.

"Close the door," she told April shortly, and she obliged. "Sit down, please."

"Leslie, can I go home early I think I might be pregnant," April said with a fake grin on. "With what's-his-name's baby, and they're gonna be-"

"April, I wanted to ask you something," Leslie interrupts her and stares dead ahead, without breaking.

"So… ask me," April deadpanned.

"What's your game plan here?" Leslie tilted her head and shrugged like she didn't understand something. "All of this… this Venezuelan hunk business. What's the end game here?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," April mimicked her movements and smiled blithely.

"Oh, okay. Sure," Leslie nodded and stood up, walking over to sit on the corner of her desk with her arms folded. "This coming from someone who actually came to me to talk about  _Andy_ just a few days before you left for Venezuela."

April closed her eyes like she was being smacked with that information. Oh, she remembered that day. It was just after coming back from Andy in the hospital, and it was the first time in years that she felt like such shit.

 

* * *

 

"Leslie," April was almost shaking with anger, nearly yelling into her phone. "Leslie, c'mon. C'mon! Leslie-"

And an hour later when April finally found her walking around Ramsett Park like a lost child, she sat next to her on a bench and squeezed her hands together hard. They sat in silence for a little while until Leslie turned and explained what was happening with the shutdown and that she couldn't help anyone.

That look in Leslie's eyes, like she couldn't do anything, made April scoot a bit closer and nearly hug the woman. Still, she had her own motives for finding Leslie and that didn't involve comfort for  _her_.

"Hey," she said after Leslie lifted her head off of April's shoulder. "Y'know how you said I could come talk to you… about anything."

"Yeah, uh huh," Leslie wiped her face and nodded. "You still can. You're my friend April. A wonderful, amazing, brilliant assistant and friend-"

"Okay, okay, stop," April was still half smiling before she felt a heavy, black weight in her chest and it dropped, "and you remember you said I could talk to you about Andy?"

 

* * *

 

"Look, that was then," April crossed her arms as well and felt more like a pathetic kid than ever before, "and now I just want to see Andy feel like shit for making me feel like shit."

"You know that's never gonna happen, right?" Leslie nodded, poking her head forward aggressively like April was an idiot that needed something explained seven times over.

"What d'you know? You pined after freaking Mark forever, and that guy  _sucked_ ," April spat and looked away still, annoyed that they were talking to each other like this but unwilling to give up her position. "So you don't know anything about guys, so just stop it."

"Andy's not gonna stop until you tell him to, which is fine. If you want him to leave you alone, tell him that," Leslie stood up and sighed, "but if you think he's gonna be pissed off at you then you're sadly mistaken."

"You act like you know him all of a sudden," April finally stared back and uncrossed her arms.

"You know what he told me the day you came back with your glorified escort?" Leslie blinked rapidly and smirked. "He told me he cared about you more than anything in the world, and that he'd do anything for you."

April stopped her interjection to let that sink in. She tried to tell herself that was gross and invasive and all kinds of things, but none of it stuck.

"That's creepy," April tried. "He's a stalker."

"And you know what I told him to do?"

"What?" April asked, almost eager.

"I told him to go big or go home, and he did," Leslie nodded and put her hands on her hips before softening momentarily. "April, he's still going big. If you actually hate him, that's okay. Just don't treat him like that."

"After he treated me like such a queen?" April bit back and felt more agitated than ever. "He basically played with my emotions every single day, and that sucked butts Leslie."

"I know, April," Leslie moved forward and put her hands on the young woman's arms, April trying to figure out why she didn't just leave. "I know it sucks, trust me. So why are you still here? Why are you still doing this to him if it's just to leave?"

"Because he deserves it," she said quietly, her eyes prickling and fighting that urge harder than ever.

"Do _you_ , though?" Leslie asked softly and April's eyes shot up in response. "If it's just his problem, stop acting like a child and… I don't know, just don't keep doing this to yourself."

"I told you I'm not-"

"That's enough for now," Leslie broke away and turned around, her voice shaky as she looked out into the courtyard.

April stood there without saying another word, a few seconds going by, and she moved forward. Putting her arms around Leslie, she hugged her superior harder than she'd done just about anyone. It felt right, and since they didn't have to look at each other it made the tears April fought back way easier. Leslie didn't say a word or turn around and April liked it better that way. It felt real and like something that she didn't just dream when Leslie refused to say another word to her.

And when she left work that day she drove Eduardo to the airport, bought his ticket for him, and told him to leave her alone forever.


	86. Ron and April

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had requests for more Ron interaction for a while, and I've been sprinkling some of that in as we continue, but I got an anonymous request for a Ron and April friendship bit inspired by 7x04. So there are tiny spoilers.
> 
> Like last chapter, April/Andy is in there but it's primarily character interaction outside of that.

 At least, in his mind, he had April. Where these new people continually poured in, clad in actual business attire and workplace attitudes, there was always April sitting in Leslie's old office and refusing to work. He had solace in knowing somebody was still in his good graces, somebody that bothered to stick around and help him demolish this paltry, municipal hellhole. 

It wasn't that he was  _missing_ Tom, the hyperactive entrepreneurial spirit that America sorely needed, or Donna who was confidence in privacy epitomized. Losing April to the vast unknown of new Pawnee, that last vestige of not-giving-a-shit that she even still clung onto, wouldn't be devastating because she was a friend. After all, she was just a workplace acquaintance. 

That's it.

Ron, as such, continued to expressly, thoroughly and obviously, enjoy not her company but the fact that they shared similar viewpoints. It didn't matter that he'd ask her how Andy was, or ask how Leslie was, since none of that mattered. They were all fleeting moments in his life; just people. They were all just  _people_. His people. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

One afternoon, Ron holds in an urge to stand up and walk calmly to meet Leslie as she entered his department. The door to April's office opened for the first time that day, save for when she arrived at work, and Ron's heart sunk. He wasn't an idiot - he knew what this was. Leslie had a very large stack of folders in her hand and April had her bag over her shoulder, as if this was a casual meeting. It likely was, a casual meeting that is, save for the fact that it may have also been a work-related meeting.

But Ron didn't care. He only waved silently to the two of them as they turned and looked at him. 

But Ron did care, especially when they didn't seem to notice him waving.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Ron, I need to talk to you about something," April opened the door to his office one day, an unsure look on her face.

"Continue," he muttered, motioning to a seat.

There was a time, for a year or so after Leslie left for the National Parks Service, that they had lunch together in this office. Neither of them said a word, only eating, and never making eye contact. To Ron, that silence and absolute disinterest in the other person, it was the perfect lunch hour. Only occasionally would someone bother to interrupt their quiet, earning a combined glare from the two of them.

It was actually kind of incredible, not that Ron loved it or anything.

"Y'know how Leslie and I went out for lunch a few weeks ago?" she was playing with her hands, fidgeting. Ron knew that meant she was anxious. Her absolute eye contact meant it was important; crucial.

"Yes," he answered slowly. He knew exactly where this was going.

Apparently April understood he knew, because her lips tightened in that flat line of refusal. "She offered me a job," she said softly.

"And?" 

"I took it," April finished, shrugging a little, "and I'm gonna be out of here in, like, two weeks or something."

"Okay," he said simply and maintained a level face. This was his last acquaintance leaving for bigger and better things, the last of the group he... acquired a taste for enjoying being around. 

"That's it?" her face scrunched up, like a little kid that expected more when she showed her friends a pile of dead bugs. Ron knew that's what that look meant because April literally did that in first grade.

"Yes, you are an adult with your own life," and Ron sighed, so heavily he thought she'd notice but if she did April said nothing, "and you're moving on to better things. It's time."

April sat across from him, staring constant and without breaking. Ron returned it, hard, because he had no other reasonable reaction. All the others were fitting for people of much less personal and great dignity as Ron Swanson, so he bottled those up and left them to rot inside himself. The only solution was to raise his hand across the desk as if to shake hers.

"How's everything at home?" she asked him, playing with the ring on her hand in the silence afterwards.

"Fine."

"Diane? The kids?" she looked up and her face was losing some of that even quality.

"Wonderful, and Andy?" he tried to keep it civil, unfriendly, and related to the obviously few things he'd known about her.

"The best," and her smile is telling, but then it falls.

"Great."

Their small exchange died out. Neither of them said another word until Ron cleared his throat and even then they only both moved uncomfortably in their chairs. After a few moments of silence, Ron finally spoke up.

"It's been... a pleasure," Ron's voice stumbled and they both knew it. 

But she didn't accept it, instead standing up and walking around his desk. Ron immediately accepted the hug, and when April said something to him he nearly snapped his jaw trying to maintain a steady voice. He knew it was coming, and he knew it was going to be hard to let her go, but that didn't mean he wouldn't see her again. Then again, he had said that about Leslie and look where are they are now? So, when April said, "I love you," and it's quiet and she's breaking the hug quickly, Ron just nodded.

She walked out of his office, and they don't have another talk like that for two weeks. When she left, and her office was cleared out, she noticed him waving her goodbye. She gave him a small one in return and Ron took a deep breath. 

That was the last one gone. His last fr-

_Acquaintance._


	87. Cut - Though Little We Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should get to requests but this was in my head all weekend and refused to leave!

On yet another cold night, something inspired Andy to go on a walk. It was stupid, especially when it was so damn freezing, but April didn't mind. There wasn't much else to do around the stupid city anymore and just hanging around with him was never boring. Usually they found a bench or some little bus stop to sit at and talk, or just sit there and point at people and laugh. In a particular mood, Andy instead held her hand and continued walking when April pointed out a bench in a park just two blocks out.

For a few minutes she thought about complaining but didn't really see the need to after a while. There weren't many people around and April was happy to be there - just being there and with his hand in hers, warm from a coat with awesome fur-lining Andy's mom gave her for Christmas, and thinking.

Sometimes she thought back to days that almost didn't happen and April smiles. It was a little strange at first, especially when she told Andy why she was smiling, but thinking that she's actually walking around in her own two feet and breathing in chilly Indianapolis fog April knows she simply might not have been able to before. They both changed a little bit along the way, and Andy saw maybe more of her than he needed to, but things were actually kind of great. It also led her down the train of thought that sparked her speaking up while they walked that night.

"Hey," she said quietly, barely above the distant traffic and sounds of bustling late-night diners and bars around them.

"Hey," Andy repeated with a smirk, earning an eye-roll from her. "What's up?"

April took a breath but just swung his hand back and forth while they walked. She wasn't sure  _what_ was up, April just knew that if she could talk to anyone it would be Andy. "Just thinking, y'know," April muttered and lowered her head, "I mean, it's nothing like that. Just... thinking."

"Oh..." Andy nodded and kept up their pace, "that's cool, right?"

"Yeah, cool's the right way to put it," April let her smile fade as the sheer thought went deeper and deeper, until it was starting to find an uncomfortably familiar purchase.

"You don't look like it's cool," he said slowly.

With a wave of her other hand she tried to quiet him, speeding up her pace. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

"Babe," Andy said quietly, this time almost totally inaudible, "you can always tell me stuff. You know that."

"Yeah, I know," she cracked a tiny grin and bumped into him as they walked.

Without another word they took another turn before they walked through a small holiday display still standing. A few kids ran around it, their parents picking up something hot from the stands still open, and enjoying themselves in the cold night as April and Andy walked past. When April looked away she realized that Andy was watching the scene as well and there was a faint movement at the corner of his mouth that told her it was okay to smile too.

Passing the scene, they found a bus stop where April pulled him down to sit with her.

"It's about... stuff, y'know? Us, kinda stuff," April explained to him as he sat down next to her.

Andy looked like he was biting the inside of his bottom lip in confusion before he nodded. "Yeah?" is all he could say, before nodding more. "Is it, like, good... 'us' stuff?"

"I don't think it's really good or bad, it's just..." April shrugged and shook her head, "I dunno, none of this makes any sense. Sorry."

"Why don't we talk about it, then? Just 'cause you're not sure what it is doesn't mean it's bad," Andy said so slowly she thought he was picking apart every word and trying to remember what each one meant. "Or something. I dunno, I'm not sure about a lot of stuff."

"Do you ever wonder... that we just don't know anything better?" April offered him immediately, rolling her lips before talking again. "Not that this isn't the best-"

"You did agree to marry me," Andy butted in, smiling wide.

"Yeah, and I want to... but, don't you ever think that we're doing this because we don't know any better?" April finished, already regretting saying it. This was all stupid. They were enjoying a night out, just walking, and she found that it wasn't the absolute worst thing in the whole world.

Andy was clearly confused, and that was fair. It sounded like she both wanted it and didn't really understand why she wanted them, or at least that's what made sense in her head.

"What?" he raised an eyebrow. "So... you're, like, thinking about other people?"

"What? Ew, no," she bumped his shoulder with a grimace apparent on her face, "I'm just asking if you ever thought that maybe we only know  _this_ -" she motioned between the two of them, "-and that's why we're young and dumb and engaged."

"I did it because I want to spend the rest of my life with you, babe," Andy said nonchalantly, "and that's all that matters to me."

"I know, and that's awesome, and I want to do it too," April tried to convince him that she wasn't thinking anything else and just wondering, "but don't you  _ever_ think what it'd be like to be with somebody else?"

Immediately, without a moment's hesitation, Andy laughed and then said, loudly, "No!"

"Really?" April was almost certain he was lying, but there was no sweat. He didn't even look slightly red in the face and he wasn't itching the back of his neck at all.

"Really! Dude, I wouldn't want anybody else no matter what. You're the best person I've ever met and you're the smartest and you're hilarious, and you're beau-"

April stopped him before the cavalcade of compliments came. There were days when she didn't mind them - days, just like any regular person, where she just needed to hear them - but now she was comfortable. She was fine being herself and being around him, so she kissed him quietly underneath the awning of a 24-hour stop. When she pulled away their hands were tightly clasped and she had more than a trace of a smile.

Andy, however, was beaming.

"Do you ever...?"

"No, I... I'm glad we're here, and it's us, and  _ugh_ ," April put her head in her free hand and groaned, "this is stupid. Sorry-"

"It's not stupid," Andy sighed and moved his head lower to kiss her again. "It's not."

April smiled again, so many times that night already, and moved her chin up just a bit so he didn't have to almost lean all the way on top of her. After all, it was fairly public and still really cold. Otherwise she might not have bothered at all with holding back - the way he just looked at her and made it obvious that he really wanted to hear what she was thinking. That was just one of the many reasons April was totally cool with marrying Andy Dwyer. 

Yeah, one of a few.


	88. Pretend to Care

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested by Lila in the comments as "more H/C around hurt Andy, maybe something in the hospital."
> 
> I guess there are tidbits of stuff from 7x04 in here (at least April's job) but there aren't really any S7 spoilers. Also, some April and Tom stuff because I've been on this streak of "April + x" for a while here so why not? It's a little less angsty than I think was requested, but I hope that's okay!

April can't remember how many times Andy's been in the hospital. He's broken both of his arms multiple times, not at once though, and he actually broke both of his legs  _at the same time_ so things got understandably blurry when it came to his medical visits. One time they went in for some routine nonsense, something about yearlies, and she didn't even know he broke his thumb on the sliding doors outside until he mentioned it to the doctor.

Hell, he needed  _glasses_ but she already knew that wasn't going to work. Contacts were fine, and she's already used to them so it was a matter of time before Andy would get used to them too, but sometimes she wondered how he got himself into this stuff. Then she remembered him buying a bike only to crash into a car not long after, so April stops thinking about it.

Now that April's finally getting accustomed to her National Parks Service job, whatever the hell a Regional Whateversperson is April still doesn't know, she can finally spend lunch hours sitting around with Andy like old times. His new TV spot as a children's entertainer - how in the world he managed to negotiate that without her around was beyond April's understanding, not that Andy's a moron but he lacks a bit of intuition when it came to that sort of business-savvy thing - wasn't giving him an awful lot of time with recordings to drop on by. April made sure to call Andy's agent and  _negotiate_ (or as she would say, threaten and blackmail, but what did that lunatic know?) better afternoon hours.

That meant, eventually, Andy somehow finding his way to a part-time job as an assistant. Again, April's always going to be confused how he lands stuff like this. Then again, she knows he always just needs a push before he tries something. He could be whatever he wanted if he focused hard enough, she knew how weirdly smart he was and his viselike grip his brain had on certain memories and weird factoids, but a minor television celebrity was something completely different.

April has all of these thoughts and more, gross constant thinking, when he doesn't show up for lunch one day. He doesn't show up, none of her texts get answered, and when she calls him his phone isn't even on. 

"What the hell?" she mumbles to herself, confused and kind of annoyed. Andy never forgot these things, at least anymore.

Terry happened to overhear her and said something but she mostly ignored that. When April tried to call him again, there was still no response, and something else was starting to seep in - worry. Ugly, unwanted worry. So, like the mature adult she is, April throws her cup of pencils at Terry in frustration.

Again, he says something but she doesn't register any of it. Standing up, she quickly walks out of the department on the third floor into one of the interconnected halls. With her back against a wall, she taps her foot impatiently as yet another voicemail goes out into the ether unanswered, and April has that pang of worry again. Silently, she just wishes that he's okay. As if heeding her mental call, her phone immediately vibrated loudly in her hand.

The number, however, was totally unfamiliar to her. She could only see PAWNEE M- before the scrolling text started and April's too impatient to wait and see who this is. 

"Hello?" she growls, squeezing her phone tight because this isn't who's supposed to be calling her right now.

"Mrs. Ludgate-Dwyer?" a very calm, cool voice of an older woman answers her.

And that, something about that voice and the formality of hearing her own name combined with a minor anxiety burrowing in her mind, makes April hesitate to answer for a second. "Yes?" she eventually gets out, like a question because she isn't sure what she's supposed to say. "Yeah, this is... yeah, April speaking." Her mouth is suddenly way too dry and April doesn't like any of this.

Just as she's standing there wondering why breathing is so damn hard all of a sudden, Tom appears from an elevator and greets her. "April, what's ha-"

April puts her hand up and stares at a corner of one of the walls, focusing on the lady on the other end speaking. Something something something - car crash - something,  _something broken?_

Her mind starts running in seventeen different directions, each one just as confusing and terrible, but she can't make out anything that should really be worrying. Just something about staying overnight, and a scan, and that she would have to pick him up. There was something about his car, too, but before she could really explain anything April grabs Tom's arm and makes him drive her to the Medical Center just a few minutes away from City Hall. 

Hell, he owes her for the free labor she gave him when the Bistro opened. The least Tom could do was give into her demand that he drive her a few blocks. Her pastiche of fury on April's face was just a well-hidden worry, anyways, so if he did refuse her - which he never did, Tom was a few things but he was always a little meek around strong women - April had no choice other than to beg him. She doesn't have her own car anymore, that stupid laking two years back the culprit, so she needs either him or  _Terry_.

The last thing she's going to do is ask him for help.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The whole drive, Tom kept asking her why she was playing with the strap of her bag. April keeps saying it's nothing, and everything's fine, but he also never asks why they're going to a hospital. There's some bit of tact there and she's happy he isn't making her say anything. When he pulls into the parking lot, Tom turns to her with a curious expression.

She doesn't answer him, instead getting out of the car and walking purposefully inside the large building. When she asks where Andy is, and has to almost fight some stupid nurse because she's his wife not some random person, April turns and sees Tom waiting in a chair. As she moves to a hallway she can hear his stupid shoes clipping all the way as he half-runs to meet her pace. The elevator ride is uncomfortable because someone else is in there with them, but that doesn't stop Tom from being annoying and  _there_.

He doesn't actually say a word, but that doesn't matter. April's supposed to be able to look distraught and uncomfortable with Andy being in a wreck. He's fine, she knows that, but that doesn't mean her heart's beating its normal rate and her hands are sitting comfortably at her sides.

"So what's the deal? Andy break another leg?" Tom half-jokes when they exit the elevator, that small devilish grin on his face.

"Yeah, Tom, that's exactly what happened," April snaps back as she scans a hallway.

He actually looks, if it's even possible, sorry. "Ah," he nods but still follows her. "He's gonna be fine, right?"

"Yes, he's gonna be fine. Why the hell would you ask me that?" April's a little touchy right now. It's only fair. Still, Tom looks like she  _actually_ bit back.

Raising his hands defensively, he's quiet when they find Andy's room. The moment she's in, April slams the door in Tom's face and rushes over next to him. There's a little scrape over his right eye and his face is a bit redder than normal, and other than his leg elevated and the big cast on it he looks fine. Like a weight is suddenly lifted off of her, April hurriedly cups his face and kisses him.

"Babe, I was..." April looks around and stares at a nurse until she leaves the room, allowing Tom to squeeze inside, "I was worried."

"Yeah, she almost threw up on my dash," Tom waves his hands and sits down in front of the cot, "it was a bad scene."

"I didn't-"

"Everything's awesome, babe," Andy laughs and the glaze of his eyes suddenly tips April off to how many painkillers he's on. "I can't even feel it. See, look!"

Andy wiggled his leg and for a second she expects him to scream in agony but he only sits there smiling. Tom taps his foot and April turns around with a cold glare, making him root himself back in the chair. Turning back, she gives him another kiss just to make sure he's really there and this isn't some weird, fever dream hyperreality she's caught in. Instead he's just all lovey-dovey eyes and a smirk.

"I love you so much," he murmurs, putting his head back on his pillow. "How'd you get here though? I have an episode to film... I didn't know they cast you...?"

"Just, sh," April quiets him and sits next to him in a chair, giving Tom a look that should have told him to leave but instead he just shrugs. "Well, lemme know if you need something. I'll make Tom go get it. He feels bad about all of this."

"Aw," Andy's mouth is half-open and he's got another small smile, tilting his head to look at Tom, "I didn't know little Tommy was here. He's my best friend, y'know? Not like my best  _best_ friend, 'cause that's you babe, but-"

"What?" Tom interjects, but April's giving him that smile that's begging him to question her. Like an intimidated animal, Tom just backs off.

"Yeah, he's a good guy sometimes," April gives him, nodding smugly before turning back to Andy, "is there anything you-"

She intends to ask him something but Andy's asleep. His hand's over the edge of the bed and she puts it back on the covers before standing up and telling Tom he has to get April lunch. If he argues she can pull the distressed wife card, though they both know she won't since April's actually worried, but he doesn't argue. Maybe a few years prior he would argue but she's called him out on owing her something before. 

Pawnee's first mogul-turned-errand boy comes back forty-five minutes later with her veggie-fried rice but no egg rolls. He gets the honor of driving Andy back from the hospital, all while April makes him stop and get them more food.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's a week and April's dropped a lot of that initial fear from the day she went to the hospital. In some weird way she kept expecting people to be lying to her and Andy would be in way worse shape, and other than being high on pain medication there wasn't that much different about him. Hell, that really wasn't  _that_ much different than regular Andy. When he gets back home, April watches him struggle with crutches to walk around the house. 

He bumps into Champion at one point and almost trips over, but thankfully all that happens is Andy lands face-first on the couch and Champion looks around confused, bumped out of a comfortable sleep, and April laughs at him. There was even a gross, miniscule part of April that kind of wanted to help him but watching Andy struggle to get around and falling over even more was hilarious. It seriously is.

Then he actually falls and screams out, his leg slamming into a half-wall, and she gets that familiar pang of guilt. April helps him up and lets him lean on her as he finds his footing again, and when Andy's standing again he kisses her cheek and calls her the best, seemingly forgetting about being in excruciating pain.

One day she watches him lean against the kitchen counter with a can of soup in his hand. They only just recently bothered with a can-opener, so Andy bought twenty cans of basically anything that needed one. 

"You don't really need legs to do that," she explains, commenting on him leaning without his crutches. 

"Yeah, but there's, like, ledgering that helps a lot, y'know," he says with a blank look, and April just rolls her lips at the word. 

"Sure," she walks over and pulls at the pop-lid, "why'd we even get these?"

"To try out the can-opener," he says like it's obvious.

"You don't use it on the ones with the little lever tops, babe," she's standing there opening a can for him, something a grown man with working hands should be able to do, and April suddenly grimaces. "Ew, what am I doing? You can do this yourself."

"That's... that's what I said?" Andy looks confused but shrugs and pours the cold can of tomato soup out into a bowl. 

It falls into the bowl in a disgusting, slimy  _plop_ and April turns her nose up. Shaking her head, she takes the bowl from him and dumps it down the sink before he can argue. Throwing the bowl in after the gross, somehow spoiling soup, she quickly pulls out her phone. Ordering two extra-cheese pizzas, she waves Andy off. 

When the pizza comes, she gives the delivery guy a dissatisfied look as he looks inside the house. Pushing him away, she closes the door and sits down next to Andy on the couch with the food. Setting it out on the table, she gets the awful, adult plates they still have. It's another ten minutes before Andy speaks up, his face all confusion and unsure movements as he eats.

"Why'd you order a pizza?" he asks like it's some sort of unusual thing that they're eating pizza for the third time that week. 

"Dunno, seemed like the thing to do," she shrugs, "why? I was hungry, and so were you."

"Yeah, but I was gonna make some soup," he laughs and points to the kitchen, "but then you threw it away."

"It looked gross and you shouldn't eat that crap," she takes another bite and puts her food down, "do you want something to drink?"

"Why are you acting like this?" Andy pulls his head away from April like she's going to start spewing acid and grow another few extra limbs or something. 

April stands up and shakes her head, confused. "Like what?" she wonders what the hell he's talking about. She was thirsty, so why not ask him if he wanted something?

"You're being all... caring," Andy's eyebrows are all bunched together and he still looks unsure about everything, "and you're never like that. Why're you being weird?"

"I just asked you if you wanted some pop?" she lowers her head, angling her neck a bit in confusion. 

"Yeah, and you got me food and two days ago you asked me if I wanted to stay in bed all day," he says slowly and without moving his eyebrows back, all bushy and weird still.

"Because sleep's awesome, now do you want something or not?" she says a little too loudly, standing still until Andy nods. 

She comes back with two cans. They finish their food in silence and April takes his plate to toss in with the bowl that she might bother to wash at some point in the future. Who knows, dishes were Andy's job and they only got cleaned every once and a while anymore. He was getting better at it, and in a weird way that's kind of awesome to April, but that's out of her train of thought because Andy's still looking at her strangely. 

Later that night she watches him get into bed slowly, propping his leg up on a pillow. She nestles into him, definitely not-cuddling but by definition very snuggled up with him, and April almost gets to sleep when the thought hits her that she's been babying Andy. It's so weird and sudden that she almost moves away from him, but his hands are so warm on hers and his body is so comfortable to be smashed up against that she can't. 

But, for a second there, April thinks it's kind of weird how caring she's been.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning, she texts Leslie and isn't surprised at all that she answers almost immediately at five in the morning. 

An hour later and they're sitting in JJ's, and for a second April wonders what the hell  _she's_ doing up. April definitely doesn't wake up early for her job. No, no way. Then again, there have been weeks where she gets up at five and goes in, and God it makes her shudder to think this,  _early_. It helps that Andy's usually awake too, and they're not so boring and old that a little comfortable morning sex and maybe some cuddling is out of the question, but this time she's curious about something.

In front of two plates of waffles, one with quite a bit more whipped cream dumped on top, April speaks up. "Hey, Leslie, this is... stupid," she struggles to figure the words out, "or something, I dunno. D'you remember when Ann and Andy used to date?"

"How long ago was that? Seven years? Holy crap," she takes a bit of her breakfast and makes a pleased, groaning noise before opening her eyes like April wasn't there the whole time. "Sorry, what's this gotta do with the vacant plots at-"

"Nothing, I just needed an excuse to get you to listen to me," April says quickly. "Anyways, you remember how they broke up right?"

"Sure, broken legs and making Ann do all this stuff-"

"He's changed a lot, though," April butts in, like Leslie's personally offending her before the blonde woman nods in agreement. "I just... I feel like the same thing's happening again. Like, almost the _exact_ same thing."

"Broken legs, and he's asking you to do the chores now?" Leslie shakes her head, taking a drink of her coffee (also to the brim and much more with cream, of course). "I think you need to tell him straight to his face that's not how he treats his-"

"Ew, gross. No, I've been willingly doing stuff for him and it's really weird and I'm confused and now you're telling me I'm not supposed to," April runs on and lifts her hands in the air in defeat, "and now I'm really weirded out by all this because I kinda want to do it."

Leslie stops from interrupting and a small smile falls on her face. April's just heats up and it feels so weird to be saying stuff like this, because it's been literal years since anything Ann did ever worried her about her relationship with Andy. Now it wasn't so much she was worried he still had eyes for her - that always makes her laugh, but April doesn't really feel the need to at the moment - but that she's turning into a complicit, even flimsier version of the stupid nurse.

"That's not weird, April," Leslie shrugs and puts her fork down as she folds her hands over, "that's just... y'know, I know you were worried-"

"Shut up," April doesn't like it when somebody else tells her that. 

"Either way," she's almost laughing again and April vehemently does  _not_ want to smile as well, "don't worry about it. Now, I did make sure to bring all the survey information and-"

April already swiftly moved out of her seat in the booth by the time Leslie mentioned anything about work. That's obviously not the reason she called together this little breakfast. She'll see Leslie at work anyways, and then they can talk about whatever nonsense she's supposed to be in charge of. Truth be told, April still isn't one-hundred percent sure what her job actually is. Whatever, joke's on the government then - she still gets a paycheck.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Andy," it's only a half an hour after she's home and she wants to sleep but has a few things on her mind from that morning, "we super need to talk."

"One sec, I think I found the perfect leg scratcher," Andy struggles with some and when she looks over at his leg he's got one of Champion's rawhide bones in his hand, scraping the side of his cast. "Yep... ah, yep this one's awesome."

"Dude, just put that down for a second," and he complies like a dog being told to obey. "Have I been weird, lately?"

"I mean, no. You're... uh, you're doing the dishes which is weird because you told me that's what I'm supposed to do," he shrugs and scratches the back of his neck. "You take out the trash and never let me get food or drinks for myself, and last night you just kinda sat in my lap when we did it-"

"Andy," she smacks his arm, "I feel weird about this, don't make me feel weird about sex."

"Gotcha," he nods knowingly and rubs his chin. "I dunno, what's up?"

"I kinda feel like doing all this stuff and it feels like I'm your mom instead of your wife," she grimaces and waves her hands a bit, "ew, no, bad image. I mean, you did this to Ann and she hated you for it and I just don't want to hate you, y'know?"

"You just said you wanted to do it, though... so do you want me to do stuff or should you do stuff? Babe, I'm so confused," he just shakes his head and puts his hands up, "this is why you're the smart one."

"Do you get where I'm coming from, though?" 

"Honestly, no... I don't  _want_ you to think you have to do stuff like that," he points over to his crutches that have little pillows duct-taped to the pads where Andy said his armpits really hurt. "Babe, stop doing it then. I don't want you to think about it at all. Why are you thinking about this, anyways?"

April keeps her mouth shut before everything comes spilling out in a mess. "Because I was super worried when you were in the hospital and I was just sorta glad that you weren't actually hurt," she shrugs and looks down at the couch, playing with the edge of a cushion. "You're actually... y'know? It's dumb, I don't even know what I'm saying anymore."

"Babe, stop thinking about it. Stop propping my leg up before we go to sleep-"

"Y'know, if I wanted to I could just let you sleep with your leg straight on the bed and uncomfortable," April says with a small smile.

"I know you could, babe-"

"And if you ever treated me like you treated Ann I would-"

"You'd beat the crap out of me, I know," Andy says with a laugh, "maybe not literally... or maybe literally, I'm not sure. You'd definitely be uncool with it, and I don't wanna treat you like that."

"So...?"

"So, I'm gonna enjoy this awesome leg scratcher," Andy picks up the rawhide bone and April chuckles, shaking her head, "while you read and lay down. Here."

He pats his lap and April immediately sprawls out along him, her legs are over his thighs as he continues scratching. She can only laugh while she picks up a book from the stack next to the couch, a pile of unfinished reads she desperately wants to get through before work actually becomes hell for her. So, while she flips a page and listens to her husband scratch his leg with a dog's treat, she wonders how she can make this fun while also still kind of caring about caring  _for_ Andy.

In a weird way, it's fun in its own right. Then again, there is a little peg at the bottom of his crutches that would give out pretty easily. She could cook up a way for him to literally fall in bed one night. That could be fun, she thinks with a smirk as she puts the book in front of her face to hide it from Andy.


	89. Baking? Baking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested after last night's episodes! Spoilers for 7x05/7x06 a little bit, but also hey guys... those episodes revived my belief in the pregnancy theory. So, yeah. That's pretty cool. 
> 
> I had to play a little bit with the request because, unfortunately, the new doll-head factory asylum house doesn't have any kitchens of its own!

The first thing that April thought when Craig, so calm and collected and weirdly not explosive, asked her why she convinced Jen to leave was regret. To be honest, that kind of sucked. Regretting stuff was stupid and usually reserved for people that actually bothered to care about their actions, something April desperately wanted  _not_ to be. No matter what she told herself though, April still had a strange niggling annoyance at doing that.

Though, and it was only fair, Jen didn't care at all about that job. April didn't either when she was just a bit older than her, so why make her waste time there? Waste time or, as Craig put it, get to work with Leslie  _freaking_ Knope, Ron _fucking_ Swanson, and of course meet Andy Dwyer. 

So, hopeful, April makes a stop to Leslie's house with a grocery bag in hand. She's busy, but April doesn't actually have a kitchen in her new house (God, she loves that place already and something about talking to Jen makes her like that house more. It's weird though, because those two are totally disconnected and don't mean anything at all) and if there's anything that college kids like it's free food. What better way to lure them to a death by thousand cuts at the hands of the local government than with sweets?

Confections provided by, and she shudders for a moment thinking about how she knows how to actually bake cookies, April Ludgate-Dwyer.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's just a few minutes of convincing and Leslie's completely on board. April gets to see Sonia, the two boys out with their father, and it's not the worst thing ever. Again, that stupid feeling about the house seeps in when the little girl walks over and watches April roll the little balls of dough curiously.

Leslie trusts April with her children, and Andy, but sometimes there's a confusion over that contract. They weren't adult or responsible enough to be relegated to handling taking care of kids even if just for a few hours every week. Then again, April stands there with Ben's apron on and Sonia picks up the much smaller one hanging from a series of pegs lower on the side of the fridge. Normally she wouldn't bother with an apron but the little girl insisted on it. You can't really bake without an apron, after all. That's not how it works. April hands her a bit of dough to roll up, following April until Leslie walks in and takes some of her own.

"You never said what this was for," Leslie mentions when the first dozen are in the oven and they're prepping another batch. Chocolate chip, after Leslie told her they didn't have robin's blood, would have to do.

"Just because I want to bake cookies seemingly at random in your kitchen doesn't mean they're for anybody," April shrugs and puts down the first small ball of dough and chocolate. 

"April," Leslie says knowingly.

Sighing, she puts her hands on the counter and turns around. "Fine, I feel bad because I kinda convinced one of Craig's new interns to become a salty sea wench, or violent man-eating siren. I'm not really sure," she says through the sigh and shrugs again.

"Why'd you do that?" Leslie asks her, prodding forward and eating some of the dough that was still meant for cookies.

"I dunno, she seemed... it was like I got a chance to talk to me eight years ago," April raises her hand and lets it fall down, unsure what to do with it because she's not even sure why she was so bothered by it all. "I mean, if I hadn't been working at the Parks department I'd miss a lot of people but I don't think she should do something because she's being pressured into it. Even if it's just, like, college credit pressure it's still pressure, y'know?"

"Mhmm," Leslie mumbles, giving April a curious look.

Ignoring that, April continues. "For me, I'm glad that I did what I did," April remembers to take a breath before going on. "She might not have that, though, and she should probably have her own life experiences and stuff that I never thought to do, or whatever."

Leslie keeps nodding, and it's so weird. April doesn't even get why she keeps nodding, and when Sonia comes back to get her cookie that she worked so hard to help April and her mom bake, Leslie looks down at her and maybe there's something about seeing the two of them together. It's something, but April doesn't really get it at all either.

It's kinda like  _jealousy_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

April returns home late at night, exhausted from walking around a gross college campus and talking to stupid barely-adults and teenagers, armed with a Saran-wrapped plate of cookies leftover. Most of them were hard and a bit too crumbly now, but they actually turned out all right. Either way, free food was an easy way to attract a bunch of kids so her plan worked flawlessly. Pamphlets were easy to get from the Parks department proper, and all she had to do was mention credits and internships and people were in.

Walking up the steps to the new house as a collective series of howls from some unknown animals in the area echoed out into the night, April's greeted immediately by an excited Andy. 

"Babe, you won't believe this: Tom got me a  _four hundred_ dollar raise!" he's smiling and looking down at her excitedly. "Like, a week! Isn't that awesome?" _  
_

"Yeah, it is," she leans up and kisses him before moving over to the one small table they kept from Burly's old house. "How'd he manage to do that?"

"By being the best agent ever," Andy's smiling broadly and then looks down at the plate in her hand. "How was your day?"

"I kinda got that annoying thing where I wanted to be nice," she grimaces and Andy just keeps smiling at her, "because I screwed something up for Craig. I got a bunch of potential interns and stuff to go there, so that was basically it."

"What're these?" he unwraps the cookies and his eyes light up, instantly scarfing down one of them and groaning happily. "Babe, where'd you get these? They're awesome."

"I baked them," she mumbles, sitting down and resting her chin on her crossed arms. "Leslie and I did it, I guess."

"Whoa, you can make cookies?" Andy looks surprised and she just scrunches her nose up at him.

"Dude, we did the cake for your birthday," she explains and laughs a little.

"Oh, yeah," he scratches his chin before snatching another cookie and polishing it off. "I thought you just made Leslie bake it."

"That's what I told you because I didn't want you to know I can bake," she looks down like she's embarrassed. "It's... ugh, it's kinda fun."

"And these are awesome," Andy shakes his head, chuckling, before taking three cookies and slamming them in his mouth. 

He looks ridiculous with all of them in there, chewing slowly. His cheeks bulge out from the crammed sweets and it looks like he's going to take an age eating them. Moving over across the table, April kisses him lightly on the lips and she can taste a strange combination of chocolate and dirt. 

Going to the bedroom, their bizarre little cloister, April falls asleep. In the morning, she finds the plate completely empty and Andy's got another cookie on the endtable next to the bed. She can't help smiling at that, either.


	90. Explanations and Ice Cream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously on tumblr as "what happens after Media Blitz/first date."
> 
> Set basically the moment after April kisses Andy.

After April kisses Andy for the second time in such a short span of time, her head might just burst. He's got the sort of look on his face that tells her all she needs to know about him, and the way he's holding her almost like he doesn't want to let go makes April feel better about going through with this. There's not much to say for a little while after that, both of them just kind of  _looking_ and quiet. Of course, Andy speaks up first.

"So, am I supposed to," Andy's still holding onto her waist as he talks and April finds she likes that a whole lot, "like, go to Indianapolis with you?"

"What?" she scrunches up her nose at him, confused.

"I mean, you said you're still going and I've gotta do all that stuff to make you stay," he's looking down at the ground, with a thoughtful expression. "So... d'you need like a ride there or something? Maybe I can help you move-"

April, instead of saying anything to him, kisses him again. She doesn't really get what he thinks she was going with Chris for other than to get him riled up like this, or why she's okay with him being willing to do all of that. April's just happy that she listened to Ron, in all fairness. When she breaks away from Andy there's that look again, and April can't help but let a tiny smile escape.

"Is that a yes?" Andy asks seriously.

"Dude, I'm not going to work with stupid Chris," she makes sure to say it slowly, so he really understands what she's saying. "There's no moving or anything."

"Oh," Andy nods and then smiles so brightly it makes  _her_ face hurt just looking at him, "cool!"

April laughs and moves in again, not really that tired of being super close to Andy. Who could be? He was tall, scruffy, and always warm. That's what April tells herself, that she likes just being close to him rather than the way he smiles against her lips. The way that he could barely speak when she kissed him the first time wasn't cool at all. Obviously not.

When April speaks up just to break the silence as they stare, she's quieter than is really necessary. "Did you really think I was going to go?" she bites her cheek waiting for an answer.

"Yeah, that's what you said," Andy looks even more confused. "I remember you saying that you're gonna go work with him. You also said you hated me and that I should go walk into traffic."

"No I didn't," April smacks his arm, but he still looks so serious.

"Maybe not in the same day, but when we watched that stupid vampire movie," Andy shrugs and looks away, "I thought it was kinda like a date. You told me that it wasn't, and said you hated me. So, I dunno."

April bites her tongue because he's actually right. It was just another one of those things she said off the cuff, without thinking about it at all, and it was because she wanted him to work harder. Thinking back on it, the few days after that he didn't talk to her at all. April just assumed, then, that he was bored even with their fake "date" and her total disinterest in him. 

She didn't really think about how it actually sounded when she told him that. To her it was just another dumb comment. Those were just stupid words that she didn't really mean, and it was supposed to be obvious that they were mostly a joke. Andy, clearly, didn't take it like that. 

"You really thought I hated you?" 

"Everything you said was either, 'wow you suck, Andy,'" he's saying all of this with no malice in his eyes, and just acceptance in his voice instead of disappointment, "and 'wow, that was stupid Andy.' I dunno, what else was I supposed to think?"

"That I was just annoyed at you for acting like kissing Ann wasn't a big deal," April spits back immediately but doesn't bother to detach herself from Andy, "and that I was making jokes."

"You just sounded like you were being mean to me," Andy shrugs.

"So why are you smiling right now?" April asks him, curious.

His grin widens a bit and then he looks down. Something about that makes April's lips turn up just a tiny bit; only the tiniest bit, though. "Because you like me," Andy says quietly, "and that's really cool, because I like you too."

"Shut up," she pushes him a little but he just laughs. 

He sits down on one of the high chairs at the shoeshine stand and April goes down with him. Sitting down, technically in his lap, April's cool with how close they suddenly are. It's not like they were strangers or anything. They could do with some speeding up in their relationship anyways, especially after they both - in turn - assumed the other person was just sort of staring through them. April would never tell him that, though. That was too personal and private, and way too much of the real April. Instead she was just going to kiss Andy, enjoy that, and move on when that got to be boring.

"Hey," Andy interrupts her thoughts while his hand lazily sits and moves on her hip. "Why don't we have, like, an actual date or something?"

"What? Why?" April can barely think of anything better to do than sitting there and kissing Andy, so why screw it up. Besides, when she clearly got bored of being around him it'd be easier to remember him as a fling.

"I dunno, it could be fun," he shrugs, "and I think I could, like, pay for it maybe. That's what guys are supposed to do, right?"

"No, not really," April stands up and offers him her hand, "only like really weird ones. Or guys that think they're being sweet or something."

"So you'll pay for it?" Andy asks excitedly when he holds her hand, and God she definitely doesn't like how stupidly good something so simple and innocuous feels, before calming down. "I mean... if you want to."

April only laughs and walks out of City Hall, hand-in-hand with Andy, trying to figure out what kind of awesome things he could be thinking of.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She really shouldn't have expected anything different from Andy. It's fine, though. On some level she expects him to take her to go out to eat just to get a free meal, but getting ice cream makes sense too.

"Order for me," she tells Andy when they pull up to a small place just a few minutes away from City Hall. 

"What?" he's about to get out of the car and she's sitting on the seat, shifting uncomfortably. 

"Just get me something with chocolate," she says, unsure why she doesn't just go out there with him. She fishes some money out and hands it to him. "Here, I'll pay for it."

"Okay..." he trails off and looks at her strangely.

She watches him go and get two small cones, one with a little pink strawberry and the chocolate she asked for. He walks back to the passenger side of the car and hands her the cone. He stands out there still, almost expectantly. After a moment of the strange exchange, April eventually opens the door and steps out to lean against the car door. 

"I mean, I don't really care... but, why'd I have to order for you?" Andy asks her, raising an eyebrow and giving his ice cream a slow lick April can't take her eyes off of.

"It's weird and I get uncomfortable when I ask people for things," April shrugs and goes back to her ice cream. "I dunno, I make Natalie order pizzas and stuff so I don't have to."

"Oh, so that's why you didn't want to go on a date," Andy says it like he's relieved. "I thought you just didn't want to be seen with me or something."

"What?" she chuckles because that's one of the dumbest things she's ever heard. If anything, she wants to make sure people  _know_ she's with him.

"Look, I don't know a lot of stuff," he smiles again and takes a huge bite out of his cone, speaking through the crunching bites, "and I guess I figured that made more sense."

"How many times do I have to tell you I like you to make it obvious," April laughs a little sardonic thing, confused. 

There's a second where neither of them say anything. Andy goes to take a bite before looking down at the ground. "I'm just still, like, convinced this is a prank," he finally says, slowly and softly. "I'm waiting for the 'syke!' y'know?" 

"That's fucked up," April grimaces at him in response.

"Can you blame me?" Andy shrugs and takes another bite. "You were pretty... y'know, set in leaving."

"Yeah, I can blame you," she says a little angrier than she meant to. "That's a really screwed up thing to say to somebody, Andy."

"I didn't mean it like that-"

"How did you mean it, then?" April calls him out, kicking herself off of the car until she's standing and looking up at him.

Andy looks down at her, almost apologetically, until he scratches the back of his neck with his free hand. April's cheeks are burning, confused and angry and disappointed in him and somehow even more than that, and she's returning his stare, hard. Eventually he starts to laugh a little, and April's chest feels like it could snap in half from the conflicting reactions to that.

"Why're you laughing?" she asks.

"Because this date sucks," he says with another laugh, and April finds herself smiling again. 

"Well, you took me out for ice cream," she shrugs. "So, I dunno what you expected."

"Not to get in an argument about who cares more about the other person," Andy says nonchalantly, like that's just something you say to someone who only very recently okayed their relationship.

"Is that what happened?" April looks up at him and remembers that she's got ice cream to finish. 

"I guess, sure," Andy shrugs again and follows suit.

"In that case, it doesn't really matter," April gives him the best grin she can muster because the words in her head make it so easy, "because I'm just glad we're together."

Andy stops for a second and smiles, wide, before leaning down to kiss her against the car. Maybe it's because they've technically made it clear that what they're doing  _is_ dating, or maybe it's because he tastes like strawberries and chocolate, but there's something way more satisfying about that. It could be that they both seem to forget about their cones and at one point Andy lifts his hand up to cup her face only to smear strawberry ice cream on her face.

There's a pink streak on her cheek when he breaks away, and he looks at her like he's sorry. Instead of saying anything April just takes her cone and presses it into his cheek, giving him a mirrored splotch of dark brown chocolate on his face. 

It's really, really hard to stop smiling after that.


	91. November

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We haven't had some fluffy what-if's have we? Here's something from a request for what would happen if Andy got to sing "November" to April in S2.
> 
> I'm a romantic at heart, so of course this is how it would work out.

The day after April's birthday party, Andy sat at the shoeshine stand with his guitar in hand. He bit his lip in confusion, trying to grapple with the previous night. He could  _swear_ that April was acting funny around him, and she was being cool when he said she looked beautiful - holy crap, that wasn't a lie - but then she started being weird and looked like she was going to make out with Raphael or whatever that guy's name was.

The reason he sat with his guitar is because he never got to sing her the song he wrote. That bummed him out more than anything else. When you write a song you don't really care that nobody hears it, most of the time, because writing it is super fun and figuring out where to put everything is cool. The final product doesn't really matter, usually. Except now, when he wrote the song specifically for April. That was a bummer.

Which is why, with his guitar strapped to his back, Andy walked down to the Parks department when April didn't leave for her lunch break. Sure enough, she was sitting at her desk with a bagel and a magazine. The moment she saw him there were a bunch of different looks aimed at him all at once and Andy wasn't sure which one he was going to get that day. She gave him a blank stare, looked down at the guitar, and then went back to not paying attention to him.

"Ludgate," he announced loudly, strumming some muted strings twice. 

"Go away," she deadpanned, and for a second Andy turned but she sighed loudly.

"You seem bummed," he said, nodding his head.

"Wow, so insightful," she flipped a page of the magazine on her desk and picked up a bagel, taking a huge bite out of it. 

"You know what always makes me feel better?" he asked her, pulling a chair from the central desk to sit in front of her. 

"Why do you have a guitar?" she inquired without looking up. 

"Music always makes me feel super good about myself," Andy started, playing the same chord that started the song over and over, "and I totally forgot to sing you this yesterday."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, the sounds of that one chord filling the department. 

"April, I'm sorry for being stupid on your birthday," he apologized, though Andy wasn't sure for what. He was just pretty confident he did something stupid. "You are too cool to be sad after your birthday. So, here's the song I wrote for you-"

"Andy-"

"It's called November," he smiled but April still wasn't looking at him. "You know that already, though. So, uh, yeah."

There were some problems with the original lyrics, but that didn't matter. Andy just wanted April to not be so bummed out, and maybe if he got to sing her that song she'd be happier. So, without thinking, he sang the whole thing to her.

"November, your bangs are cute," he started and April's eyes shifted from the magazine slightly up to him, her face even. "November, your voice is a flute."

April looked up at him curiously, her eyebrow raised. Andy kept singing anyways. You always had to mention spreading your wings and flying, because that always worked in any song ever. Besides, it was cool imagery stuff. Songs were made to be cool. 

"I wanna go on a date with you," Andy looked at his guitar, automatically singing the line that he meant to cut out this time, "November."

The moment he finished, Andy realized that he did the whole thing. It was hard not to, and he got carried away. Oh well, April didn't really like him so he could just say it wasn't for her. Then again, he told her that the song was  _for_ her. Andy couldn't figure out the tangled mess of his own thoughts when he looked back and saw April sitting up straight and looking at him.

"Do you like it?" Andy asked her, hopeful that it wasn't too bad. 

April rolled her lips and nodded, an almost imperceptible smile on her face. Andy knew she was smiling though, he'd seen her do this same thing before. It was always so cool, especially when she smiled at him or because of him. April really was awesome.

"I mean, I know it's dumb, but-"

"Yes," April nodded her head and stood up. 

"Well, you don't have to  _tell_ me it's dumb that was just a-"

"Andy," she said a little louder, sitting on her desk now. 

He stood up like he was being called to attention and looked down at April. She gave a much wider smile this time, if it was possible April was  _grinning_ , and she nodded her head again. Andy wasn't sure what that meant.

"I'm confused," he admitted.

"I said yes, and you sang..." she swayed back and forth as she spoke, "you sang about wanting to go on a date, and I said yes."

"Oh," he said, nodding in understanding. Then it hit him what she was saying. Then he  _actually_ understood what that meant. "Oh! Yeah?" 

"I mean, sure whatever," she shrugged but Andy could see her face getting a little red and she didn't drop that grin. "Yeah, whatever. Fine. Date, we'll go on... a date."

Andy smiled and pumped his hands in the air, April chuckled a bit and moved forward. There were a lot of awesome things in the world that Andy would never forget, but April standing there and looking like she wanted to kiss him was something else. She turned around and sat at her desk, though.

Later that night, however, when she picked him up - Andy was short a car, so that was kind of awkward at first but April didn't seem to care - April didn't hesitate and neither did he. Kissing April was, even if it was just a little peck on the lips, the coolest thing Andy had ever done in his life. Well, right next to making her smile. That was definitely the best. 


	92. He's the Champion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by naekilosy on tumblr as "the scene where April/Andy adopt Champion." Trying to keep the fluff going strong this week, y'know.

"Babe, why are we in an animal shelter?" April tapped her arm impatiently when Andy stopped the car in front of one of Pawnee's shelters. "You know they make me depressed."

"What did you say last night?" he was smiling so damn much and April didn't know why he wouldn't just tell her.

"That dogs are awesome and I wish we had a dog," she shrugged and then shot her eyes up to look at him. "Andy, no..."

"Yes," he nodded and dashed out of the car, running to the passenger side.

"Dude, we can't-"

"Why not? We've got money, kinda, and we've got a house," Andy slung his arm over her shoulder as they walked inside the shelter. "You actually  _like_ something, and it's animals. I love dogs because I feel a really weird, kinda like bond thing with them. It's like they get me."

"Weird," April smiled and nodded along with him. 

"Is that a yes?" 

"How is 'weird' a yes to you?" April arched her neck in confusion but was still smiling. "Whatever, we're here."

Andy pumped his fist in the air and they ended up looking at a dozen dogs. They were all dogs, though, so April really needed to have them out and run with them, have them lick her face, and see how much they farted to  _really_ know which dog was right for her. Every single one brought the same reaction from Andy, however.

"Babe, he's so adorable," he'd shout and crouch to stare at the dog in the little cage. 

Sometimes the dog would snap at him, or crawl over to him. Either way, April wasn't pay much attention because she was walking towards the back of the pens. There were cats with missing eyes and dogs with really mangy fur back here. Somehow, those were even better to April. She had Andy who was a  _whole_ puppy in a human body, and these other dogs deserved some love too.

And that's when she saw him. He was in the back, sitting in the back corner of his cage. 

"Hey," she crouched down and looked in the back at the dog with three legs and, if it was possible for a dog to look like this, a distant look in its eyes. "Hey, buddy."

Its ears perked up and looked over at April before moving back to sitting awkwardly. One of the volunteers followed her to the back and explained to April that no one's even bothered going back this far. Most of the "good" animals were kept up front so people got in and got out quickly. 

"Andy, dude, come here," she waved him over before he got his face clawed by a cat staring viciously at him. 

"Sure," he mumbled, looking over his shoulder. "What's up, you find a cool dog?"

"Look at him," she motioned with her head into the cage. "Isn't he awesome?"

"Isn't he... uh, where'd his other leg go?" Andy squinted in confusion and April stifled a laugh. "No, seriously babe. Shouldn't someone go looking-"

"They said he was in an accident and his owners didn't want him after his leg needed to go," she crouched again and held the little door of the cage, staring at him. "He looks so lonely. This is why I hate coming here."

"He doesn't have to be here, y'know," Andy grinned and joined her, nearly sitting on the floor. 

"I'm sure he'd be great at other stuff," April agreed.

"We  _did_ come here to pick up a dog," he chuckled, "and I kinda expected something like this. There aren't too many dogs that talk about how into blood they are, though-"

"Wouldn't it be so awesome if there was?" April turned to look at him and Andy smiled, moving his head to kiss her quickly.

"You are so creepy, babe," he stood up and walked around until the employee from before returned with a clipboard in her hand.

"This one," April pointed to the dog in the cage when asked if they made a decision.

If that distant look was there before, and honestly how could it be this was a dog, when they led the animal out and Andy picked him up to put him in the car he started panting. It looked like smiling to April, and it was honestly the coolest thing ever. They had a dog now. A handicapped dog, who no one seemed to want, and he was going to make Ben  _so_ mad. This was maybe one of the best days of April's life, and Andy was just smiling the whole time too.

He's the best husband ever, and April doesn't hesitate to tell him that over and over again. He wasn't the kind of guy that openly shared a lot of stuff or made it seem like he understood what eighty percent of the English language meant, but he  _was_ the sort of person who listened to the dumb things April said at four in the morning and acted on them. That's what made him so freaking cool, on top of everything else.


	93. Pregnancy and Peanut Butter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People are amazing and leave me their crazy cute April/Andy daydreams on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com/ask) sometimes. 
> 
> This is drawn from one such ask.

"Andy!" April yelled from her prone position on the couch.

He immediately ran to her side, an excited light in his eyes. "What's up?" he asked. "Do you need anything?"

April could have done with a lot of things at that moment - her legs felt like they were going to collapse, her back hurt so goddamn much all of the time and, oh of course, who could forget her wildly ballooned stomach that was impossible to get anywhere with. In hindsight, getting pregnant was terrible. Carrying this thing in her hurt all of the time, her boobs got bigger and made her back hate every second of life, but at least Andy seemed apologetic.

One of the worst results was how few things she could eat, and she was always hungry for  _something_ she couldn't have. "Get me a jar of peanut butter, please," she massaged her forehead.

"Do... do you want anything else," he stopped and looked at her before nodding and going to get a jar anyways. He returned with a spoon and a large jar of crunchy Jif in hand, smiling and presenting them to her. "Here you are, my-"

"If you start with that queen crap again," she turned and took the spoon from him, pointing it menacingly in his direction, "I  _will_ carve your face off with this."

Andy raised his hands and dropped down onto the couch by her feet. Watching him curiously, April popped open the lid of the jar and threw it somewhere behind her. All that mattered was she wanted to eat a thousand pounds of peanuts and this was the best they could do.

He picked her feet up and pulled them onto his lap. Pulling off the slippers Leslie gave her, he started kneading rough circles on her feet - moving from soles and even massaging her toes - and April tried her best to ignore the jolts of ticklishness through her then.

"Andy, what are you..." she took a deep breath, trying not to jerk her legs at all or laugh, "what're you doing, babe?"

"Leslie told me her feet always hurt like crazy so I figured you got the same thing," he shrugged and kept going, looking intently at her ankles and moving up to them.

"You're not wrong," she took another spoonful of peanut butter and closed her eyes.

"Is it good?" he looked up and she eventually flexed her toes and squeezed them together to stop any reflex. 

"Andy, you gotta stop... it's great, but,  _hah_ ," she gave a tiny squeak of a laugh and Andy just grinned broadly. "Andy!"

"Right, ticklish," he moved away from her ankles and just kept his hands on the couch.

For a little while they don't say anything, Andy just turning the TV on and April turning her head on the pillow to watch. Something in the relaxing atmosphere, and Andy's attempted foot massage, made April less obscenely angry at herself for allowing this to happen. He always had that kind of effect on her, and made her see the positive side to things she thought would be awful and the worst. 

"Babe," Andy turned to her and had a serious look on her face. "Aren't we supposed to name our kid?"

"We could just call it Kid," April shrugged and put down the jar on the coffee table just in her reach.

"Wouldn't that get really confusing?" Andy had the most intensely thoughtful expression on his face while he talked, making April stifle a laugh. 

"How about Our Kid?" she suggested, smiling.

"That's even worse!" he shouted. "How about Champion. No, wait-"

"We have a dog named Champion," April nodded and then shook her head. "I'm not naming my kid after my dog."

"Yeah, that'd be weird," he looked down at the ground, "and it would get weird when they called Champion, Champion. Then we called Champion and dog Champion came running-"

"With human Champion on his back, somehow," April grinned, loving the mental image. 

"They're gonna be best friends," Andy looked straight at April the whole time, smiling with her. 

"Yeah, I hope so," she nodded and stretched her legs out further on Andy's lap. "You make the best pillows, babe."

"I am super squishy," he chuckled and propped a pillow underneath her legs so that they were elevated just a bit more. 

That was so incredibly awesome, and she felt so much more comfortable, that April just snuggled backward into the pillow under her neck. "You're the best," she said slowly, almost mumbling.

"What happened to carving my face off?" he asked curiously.

"Eh," she shrugged, looking down at him beaming, "it comes and goes. Some days I wanna kill you for doing this and, other days, I'm so glad we're gonna be parents."

"That's all I need to hear," Andy slumped, sitting, but she still had that pillow and his belly and lap for comfort. 

"I'm literally having your baby," she started laughing and hoped that didn't turn into crying, which she thankfully avoided.

"And it's gonna be the best," he answered with a chuckle.

April found it really easy to fall into a comfy nap not long after that, and when she woke up Andy was just finishing making a bowl of Ben's chicken soup. He turned out to be a pretty good cook when motivated, and after the first few near house fires he started. Life was awesome and April actually can't wait for the stupid, annoying, painful (amazing, beautiful,  _adorable_ ) thing to drop out of her body.


	94. "Was" the Champion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this was requested anonymously a long time ago. 
> 
> Blame that person for making me do this...

The day they took Champion to the vet, on a windy Saturday morning, might have been the first time in a very long while that Andy saw April mope around the house. He was getting older, they knew that, and he was starting to hate his walks. Getting him up in the morning turned into getting him up in the middle of the day, and even then Champion growled at nothing and walked very slowly. Roberta, six years old, loved her best friend but couldn't get him to play anymore.

Neither of them had the heart to tell Roberta about Champion.

They fed him pain medication in his treats, slipping it into cheese until he figured that out. Taking Roberta to preschool was filled with questions.

"Why is Champion so sleepy?"

"Why doesn't he wanna play anymore?"

Andy has never wished more that April still took her to work than when he's blasted with those questions. It's even worse when they take him back to the vet and have to find someone to watch Roberta. It's not like this isn't affecting either of them - April especially. Andy could remember the first day they got him vividly, and how April was so excited that night.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Andy," she whispered to him, waking him from a pretty nice dream if he remembered right. 

Eventually he rolled over to see her rubbing and petting the three-legged dog's head, who was panting loudly in their room. "What's up?" he asked.

"I think he wants up," there was a spark in her voice that Andy only got to hear every once and a while. That little hint of excitement that he loved every second of hearing.

"Like in bed?" he laughed and then rolled back onto his side. "Whatever, help him up."

He knew April was smiling. Andy didn't have to see her face to know that, and when a small weight worked its way onto the bed and moved in front of Andy to curl up as best it could Andy could feel April smile into his back.

 

 

* * *

 

 

April actually cried. It wasn't that she was a void of emotions, or that Andy expected her to take it well, but he assumed she would just handle this like any serious situation in her life - shrug it off, deflect it, and pretend she didn't care. Andy didn't get to see that, instead holding onto her when her lip trembled and rubbing her shoulder slowly when she slammed her head in his shoulder. 

The veterinarian was gentle, and kind with her words, so he didn't have to hear April fly into a blind rage at some uncaring asshat. Instead April just sneezed a little and nodded whenever the older woman said something, making sure they were okay with this. Truth was, they weren't but what choice did they have? He was in pain, and it was just a natural course of his life and of his breed, so they didn't have much choice.

Andy drove them home. The two of them. It gave him time to recall another memory that made his eyes water and his heart sink.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Champion," April ruffled his ears, the dog licking her face immediately. April groaned but didn't stop him, making Andy laugh loudly.

"He's basically the only other person allowed to kiss you like that," Andy chuckled. 

"He's a dog, Andy," April laughed but kissed the top of the dog's head before giving him a pat and accepting him in her lap. "He's like our kid."

Andy could remember his heart dropping off for a beat at that proclamation, like April had those same thoughts. "Yeah, I guess he is," he agreed.

"He won't be as great as our actual kid," April turned to look at him, a small grin on her face.

That was the day that Andy learned both that Champion was basically their first child, and that April was pregnant with their  _actual_ first child. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Roberta screamed for them the moment they opened the door, and so did the babysitter. April immediately picked her up and hugged her tight, kissing her cheek and making their daughter laugh out loud. April's face still had a small sadness to it, and Andy just pulled both his girls into a one-armed embrace before going to pay the babysitter. 

When he went into the other room he heard Roberta ask, in the quietest and most curious voice, "where's Champion?"


	95. Little Push

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Missing moment before Leslie and April's heart-to-heart in 7x08.

The first thing that crosses April's mind when she's left on the bench there, a little hopeless and mostly annoyed obviously, is to sit and wonder if this is what she really wants. Does she really want to just quit, and be somebody completely different, or is this some dumb existential thing that she's not ready for? Her phone goes off that instant, and April's so glad to see Andy's dumb grin that she doesn't hesitate to answer it.

There on that bench, she just sighs loudly as an answer.

"Hey April, you're not gonna believe what we found..." he stops at the beginning of his tirade, all excited and a flurry of speech. 

"Ugh," she groans and continues pinching her forehead.

"Babe, you okay?" he asks seriously and she's so relieved that he does. 

"No, not at all Andy," she lets loose, her voice getting a little hoarse and her throat way too dry for comfort. "I'm sitting here, alone on a stupid bench, and I told Leslie I'm quitting and now she's super pissed at me and I kinda want to throw up-"

"Woah, woah, slow down," his voice gets a little shaky, like he's chuckling. "Look, cookie, calm down."

"I can't, I really  _can't_ ," she huffs and puts her head in her free hand. After a few seconds she says quietly, "I wish you were here."

"Oh, stop being sappy," he laughs and she knows he's grinning, the mental image making her smile. "Look, she's probably just being weird because you said it all way too fast and made her confused. You do that to me all the time-"

"Only when you forget to take Champion out for his walk," she stifles a snigger, sniffing and rubbing her nose. 

"See, she probably just forgot to take the proverbial dog out for a walk," he says confidently.

April laughs a little, her chest feeling less constricted and it's suddenly easier to breathe. "Babe, you got that one right!" she says out loud, despite two people walking past her and staring.

"April, listen to me," his voice gets more serious and she can't stop smiling because of course Andy's trying to help her right now. "You are gonna tell Leslie exactly what you're thinking and feeling right now. I know it's weird, and dumb, but we both know-"

"Don't say it," she closes her eyes like she's about to get hit but April's still smiling.

"You're gonna tell her you love her and that you want her to help you," he finishes, punctuating hard.

"You're amazing," she mumbles, "and I love you and I'm so glad we're married."

"Save it for Leslie," he laughs but then stops and he grunts quietly. "Love you too, babe."

April hangs up, forgetting completely about what he even called for in the first place. All that mattered was she went to her hotel room and slept with a cleaner conscience and when Leslie texted her, asking to meet, she doesn't hesitate to go and talk to her. Her role model, her friend, all of those things, and April's not going to just sit there awkwardly and uncomfortably like the day before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't fucking resist using "cookie" now that I have canon evidence he calls April that.


	96. Campaign Snippets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have something dumb and a little goofy.
> 
> Requested anonymously on tumblr with the prompt "Andy Dwyer for Mayor."

_A quiet morning in the Ludgate-Dwyer house - 6:50 AM_

 

"Babe," April shakes her husband awake. There are so many things she doesn't understand about this stupid town, and somehow this one makes the most sense. "Wake up, Andy."

"Hmm?" he blinks his eyes open and smiles wide at her.

There's a bunch of weird, ridiculous paperwork that has to be done. Even now, Ben just shakes his head at the idea and that someone actually approached them with this idea. Everyone says there's no way he'll win, and that Andy certainly isn't the right person for the job, so that means April's going to make it her mission to get Andy into office as the Mayor of Pawnee, Indiana.

Andy Dwyer, former shoeshinist now executive assistant. Andy Dwyer, who worked from the bottom (he literally lived in a pit) and made his way through small town government (kind of, but April's picked up a few things from Ben and that crazy Jennifer lady). Andy Dwyer, loyal friend and husband, was going to be the mayor and if April has to kill all of his opponents and brainwash the entire town just to prove he can do it, then so be it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_An annoying meeting with terrible advisors - 3:30 PM_

 

April groans when the guy across the table slides another series of charts in front of her. Andy's looking at April because he has no idea how to interpret the chart - how he couldn't figure out a line plot was kind of beyond her, but being good with numbers and figures doesn't win many votes in small-town Midwest America - and she hates all this formality. Why couldn't they just run around with flyers stuck to their body as clothes, screaming about his running?

That sounded way more fun, and April fires the campaign manager on the spot. Walking out of his office, Andy's confused and asking a bunch of questions. Outside and sitting on a bench in a hallway, she grabs the sides of his face and stares at him intently.

"I'm confused, I thought we needed him..." Andy starts, matching her glare.

"No, that guy sucks," she smirks a little and continues, "besides, you've already got a manager."

Andy smiles wide and kisses her.

An hour later she calls Leslie, asking her to help make buttons and flyers.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_The stupid press asking stupid questions_

 

April's tapping her foot behind the cameras as Joan Callamezzo pats her hair down and looks smugly at Andy, who's caught in the middle of a strange question about whether or not he may or may not have, possibly or not, done or not done something as crazy as streaking. Or not. The wording just made him twitch, and April wanted to take a toothpick from one of the little sandwiches and drive it into the reporter's eye.

She might have liked Joan in passing, a little, before. Now it was way too personal. Leslie could handle herself, but Andy was clearly struggling.

After a break, April demands that she sit in on the next segment of the interview. Andy looks so pleased and relieved. When they finish the count, April's stuck next to Andy and giving Joan her best, most debilitating glare. Wide eyes, loosely pursed lips, and a small jutting of her chin towards the woman is the best she can. Snaking her arm through Andy's and holding his hand, she keeps the stare as the reporter starts back up again, shakily.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Perd Hapley - 6:00 PM_

 

"There have been complaints, from people - who _are_ citizens of Pawnee - about you and your husband streaking into their homes with promotional material. So, I have a question for you Mrs. Dwyer, is this or is this not founded in fact?"

"Ludgate-Dwyer."

"Excuse me?"

"My last name is Ludgate-Dwyer, and obviously that's completely true. This is the sort of thing you can come to expect from having Andy Dwyer as your mayor."

April then gets seventeen calls from the Langman's stupid nightmare collection of people, one call from a bunch of ladies saying they'd back her as mayor over her husband any day, and hundreds of messages from voters. Handing out your private number as the official method of contact turned out to be a terrible idea, especially when that creep Harris existed. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Polling_

 

The first polling results come in, and somehow Andy's only trailing by ten points. Ben almost breaks down, Leslie can't stop laughing, and Andy asks her what that means. She loves him, but sometimes he just doesn't quite grasp some things. When she tells him that he can actually win this thing, and makes sure to repeatedly say she always knew he could, Andy picks her up and declares her the best wife-slash-manager the world's ever seen. There's no denying that's awesome to be told, even though she's pretty sure he calls her the best wife in the world every other day. 

When they have a conference talking about their new strategies and Andy's platform - which seemed to be constant parties and an absolute, total lack of knowledge about politics and city government - Andy leaves a beautiful pull quote.

He stands at the podium with April standing next to him, clutching a binder. All those reporters and cameras make her nervous and she's glad Andy's a perfect buffer.

"So, yeah... I guess this meeting of newspeople is over," he pulls her closer to him with one arm, without looking away from the reporters. "You guys should probably go because I'm about to make out with the greatest campaign manager in the world."

"Don't worry, it's cool," April leans over to speak into the mic. "I'm his wife. I even have the paperwork to prove it."

"Yeah, and we're totally gonna do it later," he smirks and fulfills his promise of leaning down and kissing her hard on the mouth. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_The very next day, in bed - 1:30 PM_

 

April gets a series of emails and texts that annoyingly wake her up. Pushing disheveled hair out of the way, eyes and body equally tired, she touched the matted smash of hair in the back and smiled to herself. Checking the emails, she laughs softly.

After the conference, Andy's almost tied with Gunderson. 


	97. UPDATE (not a chapter)

Hello,

I've had some recent financial troubles and my current living situation is very uncertain. Because of that, I'm not going to be updating for a little while. I won't know when I'm in a place where writing fanfiction is a priority to me, but I can tell you that after everything we've been through together I'm so sad to leave you this way. For now, I don't have much confidence in my being able to get back into writing at the moment.

When I come back, because I can't see myself staying away from this for very long, I promise I'll do better by you guys. When I know that I'm in a comfortable, safe space to be able to write again, I will. I'll do it for you guys.

I might not get to experience the joys of the Parks finale with you fine, beautiful people, but I'm eternally grateful for everything we've gotten to share together. Requests, comments, talking on tumblr, talking via messaging, all of these have been some of the smallest, but happiest, moments in my life. Building up the small April/Andy ficbase into this almost 100 chapter monstrosity (!) has been a work of love for you. Yeah, I still ship these two and will to the end, but primarily this is because, and for,  _you_.

For that, I'm sorry. I can't be that person right now, and I'm sorry. I will keep you updated on my tumblr (anotheropti) as usual.

Love,

J.R.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2.15.2015 - As of right now, I've cleared my "big" financial worries and just have to potentially find another job. Living space is quite a different story, but I have a good lead right now. I'll keep you updated.


	98. The Football Incident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My problems are still here, but I also just want to relax with some writing. Can't sleep. I'm not going to pretend like I'll stick to a schedule, because I don't know right now, but if I feel like writing I'm not going to ignore it. Technically you guys didn't miss anything, but I can't guarantee anything other than writing when I really, really want to right now.
> 
> Requested anonymously as a pre-relationship bit. Their friendship is as important to me as their love, because ideally you should marry your best friend in the world.

On a mild day, just as a little bit of warmth from the sun was falling over Pawnee, two figures run atop a hill just a few minutes from City Hall. If anyone saw them, the much taller figure was running frantically behind the other, smaller figure with its arms raised high. The shorter one threw something at the tall one, and its own arms went into the air. 

April's voice clipped through the slight breeze, lowering her arms as Andy caught the football and yelled with her. Leaving City Hall early, with Andy in tow, was just an excuse to get out of work early. Sneaking out on work wasn't usually her favorite thing to do, though if she ever told Leslie that April's certain she'd cry and Ron would give her a look of absolute disappointment, but Andy was tossing a football and catching it himself over and over again at the shoeshine stand. He looked bored out of his mind and when April sat down next to him he immediately asked her if she wanted to skip on their usual lunch break whatever-it-was for a bit of fresh air.

Normally she would've laughed at him for suggesting that. Normally she would have thought that going outside at all, instead of just sitting at her desk and ignoring everybody, was stupid. Normally, April hated anything to do with football. It reminded her of high school more than anything, and that wasn't something she spent a whole lot of time thinking about anymore. Normally, April would've declined. 

Abnormal was always fun, though.

"That wasn't terrible," Andy threw the ball in the air and caught it in both his hands, staring at April the whole time. 

She ignored the flush in her cheeks easily. "Yeah?" she said, squinting through the sunlight.

"I mean, you still kinda..." he made a motion with his hand, showing his elbow straight the whole time, "you kinda could mess up your arm if you don't bend your elbow right."

April laughed. She was amazed he knew much about anything, and yet it also made the most sense that he knew how to properly throw a football. Or maybe he didn't, and he was just spouting random crap at her. Either way, April was smiling and found that she didn't hate it that much. 

"Like this," he walked forward a bit and made a show of cocking his arm back, elbow bent, and loosing the ball with a small hook of his shoulder downward at an angle. April caught the ball with the tips of her fingers, making a net-like shape with her hands cupped at her stomach. 

"So... grip the laces," she repeated, remembering what he told her. She put her fingers between the large white square shapes and looked up at Andy. "Like that?"

"Sure," he nodded, smiling. He was getting closer and April wondered how she was supposed to get the full arc of everything Andy showed her when he was that close.

That wasn't even mentioning that she had to remember to breathe. Andy's hair was sitting still in the wind, but April's was picking up with its speed and she couldn't really tell much of what was happening. Putting the football on the ground between her feet, she reached around and pulled her hair back. While she was messing with a tie, she looked up and caught Andy staring. This happened so often, and it was starting to happen in closer spaces like this, that April constantly asked herself why they were being so stupid. Him more than her, obviously. April thought she was making things pretty clear for him, and with all the pensive stares that Andy gave her and immediately retreated from she worried that maybe he didn't want to make anything clear.

Standing back up straight, now a little agitated, she took the ball and tried her best to mimic his motion from before. Catching him by surprise, Andy didn't react fast enough and the ball smashed into his shoulder and made him stumble. 

"Ow," he laughed and bent down to pick it up. "You've got an arm on you, Ludgate." 

"Mhm," she mumbled with disinterest, waiting to catch the throw he took another second to toss.

His face before the throw shifted to a frown before a blankness went over it that made April angry at herself. When she caught the ball, Andy's shoulder slumped a bit and he put his hands in his pockets. Tapping the side with her off-hand, April turned and looked down the hill at a small picnic table that a group of kids were slowly abandoning. As they parted from the table, she turned back to Andy and gave him a nod of her head towards it.

Walking down the hill, April tried not to focus on how easily she spilled into anger. All it took was half a second of doubt, and a little annoyance directed towards him, and now she was getting mad at everything and anything. Sitting down at the picnic table, Andy stood and took the ball when she tossed it to him. Settling onto her elbows, April dropped her head onto her hands and looked towards the direction of City Hall. 

"D'you wanna go back?" he asked, flipping the ball between his hands. 

"Not really," she answered evenly. April turned her head to look at him. "Did... how'd I do? Like, if you had to score out of ten how good was my throw?"

Andy smiled and she felt her cheeks warm up a little bit more. "I dunno, like a six or something?"

"Wow, that bad?" she cracked a small smile and Andy's face nearly split in half. That felt much, much better than being pissed off at nothing. 

"Eh, you just need a little practice," he shrugged and ran backwards, beckoning her with his hand. "C'mon, I bet you can do better."

April stood up and found herself running toward him a little faster than before, and then Andy made a running pass just a little too far to the right. April moved to make for the throw, but she got her foot caught at a strange angle when she made to swivel for the ball and stepped down, hard. Instead of landing on her foot like she intended to, April put most of her weight down on her ankle, forcefully. A weird, crunchy noise came out, followed by her shriek and she fell to the ground. The football landed softly with a light thud in front of her, but April could only feel the blinding pain shooting up her left leg.

Rolling over to her back, the motion made her cry out again and look down at her foot. It wasn't obviously broken or anything, but she couldn't shift it at all without a jolt of pain. Andy was sprinting towards her now, just as April hiked her good leg up to get a better look at the other one. Lifting her foot gently, she tried to set it down and put some weight on it but only got a few pounds down before she had to flop back down and wince through it.

"Holy crap, are you okay?" Andy shouted, sliding next to her and looking down at her foot. "Are you hurt?"

"No Andy, I'm just totally unable to stand up for no reason," she got up to her elbows and grimaced, breathing hard. 

"I'm so sorry," he said genuinely, his eyes wide and concerned. His voice was shaking a little, and April didn't understand any of that whatsoever. "I'm so sorry, April."

"It's not your fault-"

"You're in your sneakers and I threw like that, and you slid and broke your foot or something, and I screwed up," he put his hand on her shin and thankfully didn't move any farther down her leg. "Does that hurt?"

"No, and it's..." she took another deep breath when Andy's hand went under both of her knees and his arm found her back. "It's fine. What're you doing?"

"I think you gotta get that checked out," he lifted her up easily, the angle of her foot not so much dangling but straight ahead with Andy's arm as support. "You can't walk, so..."

"This is weird," she looked up at him and smiled. 

If he couldn't tell she was blushing, April would be convinced Andy was simply blind or didn't have eyes. He did though, big warm ones that looked back at her and then to him cradling her almost bridal style while her foot ached every few seconds. Laughing he set her down slowly, sitting on the picnic table, and crouched in front of her. April tried her best to hold her leg onto his side, but it was uncomfortable and she couldn't handle it for more than a few seconds.

Without thinking about it, April's leg hooked around his stomach while the useless ankle dangled.

"You good?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at her. 

April hesitated. Concerned was definitely the word she'd use to describe him at the moment, and that was at least  _something_ more than assuming he ignored everything she plainly shoved in his face. "Yeah, but go slow. I don't want my ankle to bounce around," she nodded. 

With her arms around his neck and given a piggyback ride, Andy walked her a few blocks to the Pawnee Medical Center. People stared at them the whole time, and if they got the impression that they were together then April wasn't going to stop any of them from thinking it. Setting her down in a chair in the lobby, someone walked over. Someone that April wished she didn't have to see right now.

"Oh, hey Ann!" Andy had a jubilant lilt in his voice when he said that, making April grimace. 

"So what happened here?" Ann asked, holding a small clipboard out to April. She clearly ignored Andy, and that was nice to see. Then again that usually meant he'd try even harder to get her to notice him, so she wasn't sure where she stood on that.

"I think Ludgate here broke her whole foot or something," he shrugged. 

"I think I just sprained my ankle," she filled out the document with nonsense, fake names like 'Marie,' and handed it half-completed back to Ann. 

"Well, I'll have someone take a look at it," Ann said evenly, not looking at Andy. "You'll just have to wait a moment-"

Ann made to help April up, but she stood on her good foot and Andy immediately took her arm and lifted her up so that she was putting most of her weight on him. Ann gave her a curious look before walking away and returning with a wheelchair. Scrunching her nose up at it, she only sat down when Andy gave her a look that had that same small bit of compassion and concern in it. There was something really scary about that, but April wouldn't deny how eerily good being helped into the seat by Andy felt. She could have hobbled and hopped her way over to it, but Andy helped her.

He steered her, following Ann. He made noises like a car engine and swerved a little, bumping into Ann's legs every once and a while. It made April laugh, her face broken into a stupid smile that made her laugh even more. Ann noticed and gave her another look, but April just stuck her tongue out and put her hands out, thumbs pointing down in disapproval at her. Andy followed her example, and when she looked up he still had his tongue out at her.

When she propped her foot up, Andy stayed at her bedside and they had a thumb war. Ann returned and they continued, Andy apparently ignoring the nurse now. That might have the best thing ever, even when she found out that it was just a sprain and would take only a little while to heal. 

"I can drive you back to your place," Andy suggested immediately, scratching the back of his neck. "If you need to go somewhere, or you need something, or whatever... you can just call me and, uh-"

"That sounds awesome," April nodded, and Andy grinned. 

Andy any time she wanted him to be around? Andy at her beck and call? Andy acting nice to her and not to Ann? Yeah, all of that sounded pretty great.


	99. Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set sometime after 7x10. I was honestly terrified when that buildup happened, and was totally convinced it was either baby or something really, really bad. Thankfully the writers at P&R aren't the worst.
> 
> Connected to my old favorite in the depression theory. Requested anonymously on tumblr.

When they go home, there's a dense air in the car. Andy wonders if it's his fault, or that maybe he said something wrong back at the studio, but he can't spend too long thinking about that. The only thing that's working in his mind is turning what April said over in his head again and again. It's mind-blowing that she felt like that - like she was  _taking something from him_ \- so he drives with one hand and laces his into hers.

Andy thought that after all these years she wouldn't think like that anymore. He should have known better. He knows that whatever it was she dealt with, and April never liked to think about it too long let alone speak to a  _professional_ about it, just lie dormant. It waited to come back, right when she needed it least. Apparently whenever she worried about them, it came back roaring and just as agonizing.

She just smiles back at him, quietly, and the ride feels less oppressive. When they get back home, she tugs him down with their intertwined hands to kiss her if only for a few moments. 

"I'm sorry," she says with a catch in her voice, both of them standing in the threshold of their front door.

"For what?" Andy gives a short laugh, confused.

"I dunno," she smiles a little and that honestly makes things better. "I just feel like I did something wrong tonight."

"That's stupid-"

"I just mean... you really do love that show, Andy," she slips her arms around his waist and hugs him while she continues, "and I feel like you wouldn't have to leave it if I wasn't here."

"I wouldn't have gone and done that show without you, babe," he shakes his head. "I told you that and I mean it. I  _actually_ wouldn't have done this without you to help, support me, and be there like the awesome person you are."

"Andy-"

"No, you're the best. You seriously are, April," Andy pulls her away so that they can find their way to the couch. Sitting down, April sprawls out along him, legs over his stomach. "I've said it for so long and I mean it all the time, every single time."

"Yeah, you always used to say it before we went out," she smiles a little and sits up with his arm as support on her back. 

"I still do-"

"That was because you just wanted to go out with me, though, and now we're dumb married people and..." April trails off, staring down at her hand tapping her kneecap. 

"I still think that, and I know it. You're the best-"

"Why?" April looks up at him, and her voice is doing that same weird thing and her face is looking all crumpled and sad. It's kind of the worst thing to see again - it's too familiar. "Why am I so great Andy? You're always... you helped me figure out something I love to do, when I wanted to go be a vet you didn't care about anything but it being my dream, and when I went to Washington you believed in me and made it work. You're always there for me and what have I  _ever_ done for you?"

Andy actually sits back and wonders how someone so smart, and amazing, can be this dense. He learned that word from Ben, and April was definitely being stupid. "Cookie, you've been all that stuff. You... you told me that I could do whatever I wanted, and when I went to London  _we made that work_. You got me to go back to Johnny Karate, and to music, and you're always here."

Andy picks up her hand and takes it in his. She's looking away from him and her eyes are far too watery for anyone's good. He hates seeing her like this, and for so long she had been clear from it and from thinking like everything was useless and pointless. 

It always comes back, that's what she said then. April, as always, was right.

"April, look at me," he says gently, and she does. April sniffs and wipes at her nose with her free hand, squeezing their clasped ones harder. "You've done so much for me, but that's not what matters. What matters is that I love you and you love me."

"I do; I do love you," she nods vigorously and sniffs again. "Andy, I really do, but it can't just be-"

"Can't just be what? That I don't care where we are, or what we're doing, as long as we're doing it together?" Andy doesn't know where he's coming up with some of these lines, but April needs to hear them. It's stuff that's buried in the back of his mind, back there where he always tries to work out the kinks and make them perfect like she deserves. "As long as you're happy, I'm happy. What makes you happy is in Washington, so that's where I'm going. With you, and it'll be us... and it'll be so, so awesome."

April looks down again, but this time he can see her lip tremble and she has to blink before looking back up at him. "Yeah, it's gonna be awesome," she says shakily and nods again. "I love you."

"Yeah, you too," he rubs her back the whole time, looking at her and smiling.

"I'm sorry for doing this again," she itches the bridge of her nose uncomfortably, like she's embarrassed about something. "I thought I was over it-"

"You told me you don't just stop thinking like that," he slows his hand down between her shoulder blades and speaks slowly, trying to be as comforting as possible. "You don't have anything to be sorry about, April. I told you I love you no matter what, no matter where or when or anything like that!"

"I know, and I believe you." April's voice is much more even now, making Andy's chest a little lighter. "I remember what you said back there, too..."

"You  _are_ what keeps me going. You're everything, April," he shrugs and scratches his moustache, fighting the wetness in his own eyes. "I dunno, but you're not taking anything away from me. Everything I need is right here."

He rubs her back more and then pulls her in to kiss him. April smiles against his lips and he can feel something fall onto his cheek, something wet and warm, and when he opens his eyes April's lip is quivering and she can't seem to close her mouth. Caught in a word, she's silent and crying. 

Wrapping both of his arms around her, April snuggles closer to fit neatly into him. Smashed up like that, with his hand moving slowly up and down her arm and April shaking every few seconds - making Andy's eyes spill over once or twice, but he tried his best to keep it together so they didn't do  _this_ again - they sit for some immeasurable amount of time. Andy doesn't know the hour when he stands up and April takes his hand, walking back to the bedroom. He doesn't know how long it is before they're tired and sweaty, and April's eyes are dry again. After, when they're just snuggling together under the covers, Andy doesn't know how long it is before April turns away from him and pushes her back into him before falling asleep. He does know that he falls asleep only moments after she does, gripping her hand tight in his.


	100. No One Like You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parks finale. There are spoilers for it contained within. Everything hurts and I'm dying, but yet it's all amazing as well.
> 
> #100. That's cool and stuff. April and Andy look back at the most important people in their lives, and where those people have taken them. I cried multiple times writing this, just as I did during the finale. Love y'all.

**April**

 

There are some things that April will hold constant in her life; some things she won't ever let go of, and a few of them she doesn't have to. The important ones, though, they're going to stick around forever for her. Life would always throw up some strange, new twist but she'll always have them. No matter where she is in her life, she gets to remember these people and these times as the greatest thing to ever happen to her. 

She'll always have that Parks Department. She'll always have these people.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**1 - Leslie Knope**

 

Leslie was, when April first met her, kind of a ditz. She didn't seem sure of herself in the way that Leslie Knope was meant to be. She didn't seem to be anything other than a willfully, and usually painfully, awkward person that made April regret taking the job in the first place.

After that, though, April felt a distinct change in the atmosphere. Power walked behind Leslie, confidence came wherever she went, and a boundless energy for optimistic politicking coursed through her entire body. It was an amazing thing to see, and even if April pretended like she didn't want to come back to the Parks department after the shutdown, she didn't have to. She could have left and stayed away. She could have forgotten about everyone there to her best abilities, but she didn't. 

She didn't want to disappoint Leslie.

When she seemed recalcitrant at the wedding, April's heart burned in confusion. This wasn't supposed to be happening. Leslie was supposed to support her and make things better and easier, and tell her that she's doing a great job. When she doesn't, April needs someone else to be there for her. Thankfully, Andy is there, but his comfort doesn't mean the same as Leslie's approval. 

And when she gives it, April tells Leslie she loves her. It's true, and she has an excuse to say it now.

Throughout her campaign, April wondered if what she was doing was at all helpful. Even if she wasn't that effective, seeing Leslie go above and beyond her mostly mediocre campaign staff made her breaths swell with pride. Leslie rose above what little she had to become who she was meant to be. And when she was removed from office, the devastation hurt April too. Seeing her boss, her mentor - her  _friend_ \- like this was painful.

But she rose again.

And when Leslie tried her best to unite Pawnee and Eagleton there wasn't anything in April's mind other than complete support. She'd go to the ends of the Earth for Leslie. But, why? She asked herself that so many times. Why should she go to bat for anyone?

Leslie made her see that being cool didn't mean eschewing "normal" things. It was okay to like work, because liking work in the way Leslie did meant helping people. Helping people meant being a positive influence, and it meant that there might be another April Ludgate somewhere scared out of her mind that life is going to swallow her whole before it even begins. It meant that maybe April could be better than a snide, ironic caricature of herself. Rising above and beyond your means, and meeting every challenge headlong with a smile and a kind heart, wasn't just cool. 

It was Leslie Knope.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**2\. Ron Swanson**

 

Ron was the type of person she expected to like. He was no-nonsense, he hated people for the most part, and didn't much care for quiet conversation. Or conversation at all, to be honest. That's all April assumed he would be - her cool boss that maybe should have also been her real dad.

Then, something changed between them. A subtle shift, and April felt closer to him somehow. It wasn't even their shared hatred of obnoxious people and their asinine small talk. April found herself retreating from him when he was angry with her, and when April screwed up again he exploded into a ball of fury that was incomparable. He didn't really say much, but he did say one thing that she overheard - she was just a barrier to him. A blockade from taxpayers and small town folk looking for help with their problems.

That's all she was.

When he tacitly blessed them by ignoring Leslie's plan for sabotage, she didn't have much to say about that. When he gladly accepted her dance, and they briefly hugged, she managed to say something. "Thank you," is all she whispered.

It was enough. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

**3\. Andy Dwyer**

 

April doesn't think of him last. She'll never think of him last in anything, especially now, but he's a constant.

When she first met Andy, he wasn't anything to her. He was attractive, sure, but he may as well have been some random stranger walking down the street to her. He was just the crippled boyfriend of Leslie's new best friend, and nothing more. 

That first time they spent an afternoon together at the Parks department felt strange. She knew something was tickling at the back of her mind when they played games together, and the way that he made her smile felt natural and real. When they skirted around what they both clearly wanted, April thought it meant he didn't want her. It made her feel like shit, like she was worthless. 

Coming back to the Parks department in Pawnee, Indiana was, of course, influenced by him as well. Picking up a random guy at an airport and leading him on just to have Andy be jealous felt like the right thing to do. Then again, just like when she got furious with him before, it was hollow and empty. Nothing felt right about it, but she did it anyways. And when Andy tried his best to make amends with her and prove that he's devoted, she can't deny him any longer. To do so would be denying herself what she wanted. That was getting old.

When they get married, April can't believe it for so many reasons. He's amazing, and she's April, yet they're standing there and kissing while the only people that matter to her stand around and watch them. Back in their bed, later that night, she's breathless when she tells him, "I love you."

It's perfect.

Visiting the Grand Canyon felt like something that she was always meant to do. It was one of those weird lifelong goals sort of things, except Andy actually had a list of those. It only made sense for her to be going to see it with him, and it felt right when it was  _because_ of him. So many things were because of him, and so many things would be impossible if she hadn't met Andy Dwyer. If the world conspired against them in an alternate reality, she would have never fallen in love with him either. But she's so lucky to have found him now, and for things to be real, that she just holds onto him while they stare into the ends of the Earth together.

Being there to support him when he thinks he's failed is so different.

"Andy, you'll be fine," she holds his hand and kisses his cheek. "It sucks be we can move on-"

"You should just divorce me," he slumps down in the chair and that makes her heart hurt. To hear him say that, and even if he's just completely out of his mind in disappointment, stings for real. "You'd be better off-"

"What? No, that's stupid," she smacks his hand, grimacing. "Besides, we agreed that we'll divorce and then get married again. No real divorces."

"You should just marry Orin-"

"Why are you being like this?" April asks him quietly. There's no insistence or anger there and she hopes Andy hears it. "Babe, this doesn't mean anything. You're always going to be my Burt Macklin and this doesn't change anything."

"I'm just..." Andy sighs loudly, wiping his face. Oh no, that can't happen. Andy doesn't get to cry. "I'm useless."

And that, Andy thinking he failed her, makes everything feel pointless. 

But when Andy gets better and he's doing something he loves, April's chest is lighter and breathing is easier. When he's smiling again she knows everything is right again. Andy is the biggest, brightest ray of sunshine in the known universe, and he's all of that for her all of the time. She can't see him like that anymore. It makes her uneasy and feels like she needs to do something. 

And when they go to that stupid Prom and Andy reminds her that they're together, now, she remembers what she told herself. In some other awful place, there's an April without her Andy. There's an April who won't get to know this. An April that doesn't get to know what it feels like when Andy makes her smile like an idiot every waking second, and when he kisses her makes April have to manually remember how to breathe. 

And when, at last, April sees that she  _does_ want this, Andy's never been happier. When they see him, at least after he's cleaned up and less entirely disgusting, April wants to cry horribly and awfully for the next year. Though Andy will always be her constant and a piece of her life that won't ever be forgotten, Jack makes her realize there's another part of her that wasn't tapped into that needed release. And who else to make her see that than Andy? Who better to make her realize that love wasn't restricted to just them, and that being happy could mean another potentially terrible human being let onto this Earth?

No one, that's who. There's simply no one like Andy Dwyer. Nobody that could make her happy like this and so intensely comfortable in her own life. There was nobody like him ever, and there never would be. Andy's a one-of-a-kind that she's forever grateful for finding in her life. There's just no one like Andy.

 

 

**************************************************************************

 

 

**Andy**

 

**1\. Leslie Knope**

 

Leslie is the coolest person in the world, fact.

When he was in the pit, she gave him a job. It wasn't actually anything, but to him it meant the world. She supported him in small ways like that, and made him feel like less of an idiot when he could help her in any way possible. Without her, Andy isn't sure if he would have ever made it out of the pit. Though he was an asshole to her best friend, and he later admits and knows that, she helped him. It was more than he could have ever asked for. It was more than anyone deserved, really. 

Leslie tells him to Go Big... or Go Home. He's not the kind of person that goes home, either. She makes him work harder. Even if it  _was_ for April, he wouldn't have felt the urge to do so without Leslie. He doesn't have a hard-working bone in his body, but Leslie's inspirational prowess extends beyond that. Something small like that made him do what he knew was right but was ready to give up on. He loves Leslie with all of his heart for that. 

When she runs for council, he gets to do something. It's not much, but he can't screw it up. If he does, then Leslie will be disappointed in him. That, above all else, can't stand. Andy doesn't want to live in a world where Leslie depended on him and he failed her - so, even though he's going to do it Macklin-style, he takes his position very seriously.

And when April confesses that she needs help and she's searching for something makes  _her_ happy, Leslie's there. Of course she is. Leslie will always be there for her friends, and though Andy wasn't going to think twice about helping his terrifying wife, Leslie stands atop the rest as the person that Andy looks up to the most. She's the most amazing person he might ever know, and he knows April. It's different though, and that's okay. That he loves her is very different from the way he loves April, and it makes so much sense when he thinks of it like that. 

Leslie Knope will always be there for him, even in her darkest hour, and Andy knows he won't find a way to repay that. There are just some things that can't be given back in the same way, and Leslie Knope's friendship is that exactly. When he sees her escort all the time, Andy silently wonders to himself and realizes that he'd take a bullet for Leslie without hesitation. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

**2\. Ben Wyatt**

 

Andy's kind of surprised that Ben is so great. When he first met him, Ben seemed like a massive douche. As he got to know him, though, he was so much cooler than that.

Even though he never expressly said anything to them, Andy knew that Ben thought his and April's marriage was stupid and rushed. He knew that. When he moved in, he half-expected Ben to try and sabotage their marriage or just continuously make fun of it. Instead, he helped.

Sure, it was mostly in his own interests (clean house, actual dishes, y'know) but he did something for them. He helped Andy make April see that being adults wasn't so bad if they got to do it together. In his own way, he made his marriage better. It was small, but that was Ben Wyatt - he did things that looked insensitive or insignificant, but to those around him they mattered. Andy cared about that, and he liked Ben a whole lot more after that.

He gave Andy his support on Johnny Karate, and even was the first person after April to accept a guest-starring role. It was small, but it felt like support for Andy's ventures. It felt like Ben supporting him in a small way that only this shrimpy nerd-boy could. 

That's not what really makes Ben great, though. The thing that makes Ben one of those people Andy will never give up on is his life. He didn't ever want to push April into having a child, if that was what she really wanted. He'd always be missing that but he'd rather have her and no kid than no her and a kid. 

"I get it, it's a sacrifice you think you have to make," Ben says with a smile, "but that's all that parenthood is, Andy. It's a series of sacrifices that you make because you think that you've got what it takes to bring this new, crazy life into existence. You just have to let April know that, because I can tell she wants it to. She's just conflicted, she's unsure."

"How do you know that?" Andy asks, confused.

"I was there, in her place, when we found out about the triplets. She doesn't know if she has what it takes and that if she does this, if she can make it work," he admits, looking behind Andy's back at something, "and I think someone wants to talk to you."

Andy turns around and April's biting her lip, staring half at Andy and half through him. He remembers that look, it's something he's known - she wants to tell him something. Turning back to Ben, he wants to say something but Ben just shakes his head and walks back into the living room where Leslie is. Again, a little thing. Ben just explaining things for him, and Andy loves that about him. 

On top of all of that, he makes Leslie happy. Anyone who can do that is okay in his books. The way that Leslie is around him, though? Andy loves Ben for loving Leslie, and for being there when it counted.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**3\. April Ludgate**

 

Someone asked Andy, once, why he was with April.

It's because when he first made her smile, talking about a deer eating Mark, even his current infatuation for Ann couldn't hold back the intense desire to do that again. It's because when she was sad he wanted to tell her a joke, because then she'd laugh at him. That was better than seeing her bummed out, because he'd take a thousand nosedives if it meant April's lips moving a little bit. It's because when she left the country he couldn't think straight.

It's because when she kissed him for the first time all Andy could think was... well, he couldn't think. April's lips met his and his brain shattered. It's because she smiles when she does it, and he wants to kiss her again because it makes her smile.

It's because, at four in the morning with a half-eaten ring pop in hand, she says she'll marry him. It's because, even though she wants to hide it, she smiles the whole time afterwards because of that proposal.

It's because, honestly, she makes him better. Everything he has in his life, now, is because of her: helping write the greatest remembrance song ever to grace this fine Earth, pushing him to become an assistant instead of a shoeshinist, giving him every bit of support and help possible when trying out for the police exam, and being the greatest wife in the world when it came to London, Johnny Karate, and moving to Washington. All of that, he wouldn't know without April.

When he does his rounds as a security guard, Andy thinks. It's because she's so smart, and so amazing and perfect, and yet she chose him. It's because, against all odds, their marriage works and is perfect for them. 

It's because of this:

April's standing there, holding her Snakehole hat in her hands and looking uncomfortable. Walking over to her, Andy takes the hat and sets it back on her head, which seemingly does something to comfort her. Taking a breath, April starts to say something but Andy ends up talking at the same time. 

Somehow, they both end up saying, at the same time, "I want kids."

And she smiles so widely, like it's the greatest thing she's ever heard that Andy can't help himself. Picking her up, he screams out loud - so loud that he's surprised someone doesn't ask if there's a murder going on - and swings her in circles in his arms. They kiss like it's their first time and April keeps smiling. It's because of that; that smile. Her laugh, that little trickle of noise that came out whenever he said something stupid.

It's because, at the end of the day, there's no one like her. April Ludgate has no equal in his mind, there's never been anyone like this in the history of the universe, and he's always going to make her want to smile. There's no smile like hers. There's just no one like April.

 

 

 

**************************************************************************

 

 

"Hey," Andy whispers into her hair. His head's been smashed up against her on that little hospital bed.

"Hey," she answers back, smiling but never looking away from Jack.

"I love you," he says simply. 

"I love you too," and she returns it just as quickly.

To them, this is what matters. Each other, their friends - Jack's godparents - and, now, the little bundle that April can't keep her eyes off of. Even though there will never be anyone like Andy for April, or April for Andy, there will never be another Jack Ludgate-Dwyer (April will always call him Little Satan, but she can't give this kid that legal burden). 

Together, they look at their little boy with an immense white heat in their hearts.

"There's no one like you," Andy thinks to himself, smiling still so wide at Jack.

April's doing the same, getting ready for her first feeding that she actually wants to do now because, as she says to herself quietly, "there's nobody like you."


	101. Go Back, or a Little Teasing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's going to be really weird following up the last chapter. I could have honestly ended this on that note and felt absolutely fine about it. Then again, why do that when I can _write more fics?_
> 
> Prompted anonymously on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) as a scene between April and Leslie post Jack's birth. By the way, there will likely be quite a few baby fics for a bit so, for those of you that don't like them or didn't enjoy that conclusion to A/A, just hold on tight :)

April usually hated reminiscing, or at least hated doing that around Leslie forty or fifty percent of the time. It usually led to a lot of tears and more photos than any one human should have around them. There were  _so many_ scrapbooks. Either way, it happens out of the blue when April visits Leslie with Jack in tow. He thankfully sleeps most of the visit off, only screaming himself awake a few times. 

It happens when Leslie's staring at him like she's going to lose her cool at any second. April's lying down on the floor staring at Jack sleeping on a blanket on Leslie's living room floor. His stupid, tiny hands flail occasionally in his sleep. Resting her head on her hands, Leslie's sitting back in a chair. Sitting inside on a chilly winter morning, hanging out at Leslie's while her kids spend most of the weekend at their friends' and Andy investigates possible jobs, is much better than anything else.

"Hey Leslie," April whispers, watching her son intently. She's surprised by it, but April could do this all day. Good thing she has a job, or she actually might.

"Mm?" Leslie turns her head and April sits up on her knees to look at her.

"You remember... isn't it funny to think about all of this now?" she laughs softly when Leslie looks at her strangely. "I mean, I have a  _kid_. Isn't that... I dunno, when you met me did you think that's a thing I'd ever do?"

Leslie gives it a moment before smirking. "To be honest, I never expected you to work there for more than a month," she says with a shrug. "I mean, I'd try to get you to stay and realize your potential-"

"Gross," April interrupts.

"But, no I can't say when I met the first thing that went through my head was you getting married to my new best friend's boyfriend," Leslie cracks a smile too; a warm little grin sets in. It's a  _little_ funny. "So, no."

"Yeah, and we got married. You were so against that, too," April doesn't say it with any malice. What happened, happened. She couldn't change what happened in the past, and she's gotten better at realizing that, so why bother?

"I was not," Leslie's voice hits an unusual squeaky tone, before April makes a face at her. Leslie quiets immediately. "I mean, I always loved you two together."

"Your memory's getting terrible, Leslie," April says with a smile. "You don't remember trying to sabotage my wedding the whole time?"

"Oh, stop," there's a calm atmosphere and Leslie's quiet again. 

Again, no bad blood. April just genuinely thinks all of this is kind of amusing in retrospect. "If we could go back and tell each other that we'd be sitting here, like this," April gestures at the sleeping baby and her chest does that sizzling once-over that she still loves. "Who do you think would believe it?"

"Well, considering we'd be time-traveling duplicates of ourselves I'm sure you'd try and capture us," Leslie nods with another smirk playing on her lips.

"You'd ask yourself if you ever got to meet Joe Biden, I think," April glances at Jack and then goes back to Leslie. "Seriously though, tell me what you think I'd think. Let's make it a game."

"What?" 

"I'll tell you how you'd react, and you'd tell me how I would, and let's see who's right," April lies back down, thankful for the blissful comfort in so much weight off of her back and feet. 

Leslie hesitates for a moment, but then she gives another chuckle. "Sure, why not," she says before clearing her throat. "I think... I think you'd laugh at yourself now, attempt to drown yourself in syrup, and then seriously consider what you said. Maybe you'd change your own mind."

April hides her snigger as best she can. Oh, Leslie. She knows her friends so well, but she just doesn't really understand  _April_ all that well, even now. 

"All right," April nods. "I think that you would have a heart attack. I honestly think that, assuming we could convince ourselves that we're telling the truth, you'd laugh and then have a heart attack."

"I don't think I like this game," Leslie murmurs and taps the armrests of the chair. 

"Because I'm right, aren't I?" April proudly whispers. 

"Well, yes. I mean, no. I mean, you said it - my memory's getting bad," Leslie taps her temple and makes a confused face. "Who knows what I can remember anymore. You win, April."

"Hang on, I never told you what I'd actually think," April sits up again.

"Fine," Leslie admits.

"You think that the first time I ever thought about kids was just last year?" April asks her openly.

"I mean... you seemed like you were-"

"Struggling with it," April nods. "I was. I was thinking about it since... since Andy and I got married. If I went back and told myself that I had a kid with Andy, there'd probably be a little doubt. In the end, though, I don't think I could have been happier."

There's a second where Leslie thinks on what April said and then she slowly shifts into a smile. They don't say another word about their little game, but when April goes to leave she hugs Leslie extra tight and tells her they'll visit again soon. After all, who wouldn't want to see little Jack-o-Lantern again? He's too adorable to ignore.


	102. A Bit of a Cough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by ace-ingit on tumblr, originally as "Roberta sick and a worried Andy who doesn't have any idea what to do."
> 
> Had to alter it a bit after the finale, since this was sent in before we knew about sweet baby Jack-o-Lantern.

It's a little hacking noise, and it abates after a few seconds, but Andy immediately cranes his head over to Jack.

His son's breathing softens and he falls back asleep, but the cough completely disarmed him. With April out for the weekend on a trip, and his three month old son requiring all of his attention, Andy tries to figure out how to go into full-on dad mode. Jack doesn't like the formula nearly as much as April, but he can't blame him. So he's got food down - he knows how to feed his own kid, okay? - but he can't always tell if he's hungry or tired or just wants to make noise.

So he tries to put him down and let him fall asleep in his crib but that doesn't work out so well. That means he's probably hungry, since he doesn't smell like poop yet. That was another thing he was actually not terrible at - changing diapers. April was terrible at it anyways since she couldn't really deal with the smell all that well and said it grossed her out, which as far as things that surprised Andy went was near the top. 

Grossing out April? Nice job, little guy. Already well on your way to success.

But coughing and being sick? Oh no, Andy doesn't know  _anything_ about that and he's spent the last hour searching for what to do if your baby is coughing. It's all conflicting information, but some of it says to call the doctor. So, of course, Andy runs it by April first.

_Cough._

Again, and the phone rings way too slowly. "April, hey honey," he says immediately in a rush, "it's nothing serious, I don't think, but I wanted to let you know I'm calling a doctor and-"

"Jesus, Andy you  _cannot_ start this conversation that way," she says loudly. 

"I mean, Jack's got a cough and it's really freaking me out," and then there's another quiet clearing sound and Andy holds the phone out for her to hear. "You can hear it right? I can hear it and I'm losing my  _freaking_ mind."

"Andy, it's probably nothing," she says it like it's supposed to comfort him, but she doesn't sound particularly sure of herself either. "It's probably fine."

"Oh God, I really  _don't_ know anything about infant care," he chews his nails and takes another deep breath. "April, I'm the worst dad ever. He's coughing and I'm talking to you instead of taking him to the emergency room and making sure everything's fine and, and..."

"And you're a great husband and father because you called me first to make sure that you're not just losing your mind," April laughs and Andy's thankful because it puts a smile on his otherwise totally nerve-wracked face. "Which you're doing, by the way: losing your mind."

"But all this stuff online says it could be really serious and babe he could be really sick," he slaps his forehead. "I'm gonna go in. I'll tell you later, I'll text you when I know what's wrong. Oh God, I gotta make sure he's okay."

Andy hangs up and shoves his phone in his pocket, packing up in a hurry Jack's things that they took with them for their weekend jaunts to Seattle. There's days and days of diapers and formula, and there's blankets, and by the time he's stuffed all of it in the car and made sure that Jack is snug and secure in his seat Andy hasn't heard a single cough. That doesn't stop him from going in and getting the inevitable talk about worrying over everything but when his son makes those sounds and it sounds like he's not breathing right who can blame him?

When he tells April she simply sighs and tells him he's still a great dad. Either way, he's still got another full day of this work trip to survive and not become an impossible pile of nerves. It's a good thing he can't really sleep that well since Jack needs him up at all hours anyways.


	103. Disembodied - I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I can do this with one part... so, here we go! Whatever, I need something to spice this up that isn't "Cut" or babies.
> 
> Just to make it clear for those of you that do not like April/Andy with kids and have been skipping those chapters... oh well! They're gonna happen because I quite liked them and how they turned out in the finale, so when those chapters happen it's an unfortunate side effect of our reader-writer relationship.
> 
> Now, today, we've got a strange one that I'm not even 100% sure about. An anon on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) came to me with the idea about something in exchange with Andy in the hospital at the end of S2. 
> 
> So, I'm not even sure what this would be for but now I'm writing it.

Andy looks at her, disappointed, when she says they shouldn't go out. It was an off-the-cuff thing she decided to say and, even at that second, she doesn't know why she said it. Annoyed, more with herself than him, she stalks off back to the Freddy Spaghetti setup and mumbles to herself the whole time. Telling herself that everything will be fine in a few weeks, and that she can get over him easily. He'll be just like that idiot in middle school and April can get over him in a flash.

_He's an idiot._

It's a painful thought, but it feels better than thinking about his good qualities.  _He doesn't have any_ , she tells herself. If she thinks about how loyal he is to his friends and how he actively goes out of his way to make her smile then it hurts more.  _He's an asshole_ she has to tell herself, because otherwise he's Andy and an amazing guy in actuality. She might have said more than half of this - probably all of it - to herself in a fit of annoyance, so it's not surprise that people avoided her. They always avoided her anyways, so this definitely made things worse.

Maybe that's why they didn't notice anything at first.

When she kicks up some dirt and looks at her feet they seem oddly large for her body.  _Strange_ , she thinks. Picking up a rake is almost impossible because she looks down at her right hand and, weirdly enough, the first thing that goes through her head is that it's not supposed to be there. It was almost like that wasn't her arm, and that rake should just be in her hand... but not her right one. That one just doesn't belong there.

And she doesn't remember anything after that.

 

 

* * *

 

"She just collapsed," a woman's voice, all murky and excitable, pips up. "I was going to ask her to go put out some fliers and then she sat on the ground and wouldn’t talk to anyone."

"She hit herself a few times as well," an older man with just as murky and unfamiliar a voice adds. "Slapping mostly. It was bizarre behavior, even for April."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy goes to Burly's place, hoping he can just crash a little longer, when it all hits him: she doesn't really like him. Yeah, sure, on the list of things that actually matter in the world this one's kind of low, but April being so obviously not into him these last few days finally takes its toll on Andy. Slumping down on the couch, beer in hand, he stares at the TV and only manages to glance at his phone when it goes off excessively.

But he just ignores the texts and calls because they're from Ann and Leslie and he just wants to be sad for a little while. Then he can go back outdoors and be himself, but for now life sucks and it's okay to be bummed out for a little while. When that dumb little chime sounds for almost an hour straight he finally looks at his phone.

_Andy it’s really serious just call me back_

It makes him scroll back up through the texts, and he keeps seeing something about April and constantly mentioning April and then his brain triggers the connection to that first text. Then he reads that she isn’t saying anything but she’s awake and seemingly aware. There's confusion apparently, and it seemed to happen just after he talked to her. In a way, Andy feels a little guilty for some dumb inexplicable reason and has to fly out of Burly's house as quickly as he came.

Good thing he doesn’t get into much traffic on the way to the hospital because he’s barely paying attention to anything other than a beeline there.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She wants to say it. It’s right there, and she can _feel her brain_ failing to do its own freaking job and say the word.

“April, what did you have for breakfast?” the doctor asks again, impatiently.

_Yogurt. Say it – yogurt._

But she can’t and, when the doctor leaves exasperated, April bunches up her left fist and slumps further into the pillow. She wants to tell her what she had for breakfast, and at this point she’s getting terrified.  _Yogurt_ , she thinks again this time much harder and trying to mouth it out. But it doesn't work because that doesn't make any sense to her anymore - mouthing the word isn't a thing that she can do because it all feels so foreign and lost in her head. 

She can't even figure out what to do with her entire right side of her body. It's all numb and funny feeling when something goes through at all, but she can never do so much as flex her fingers and her eye feels even stranger. Her parents are losing their collective minds and she just wants to tell them to calm down and that she's fine. But she can't say anything. Besides, she definitely isn't fine. So they continue to melt down while she struggles to remember how to say a word. _  
_

Anything would do at this point.  _Yogurt. Bowl. It was in a bowl. I put granola in a bowl and had a spoonful of yogurt._

An hour later someone asks her how old she is. Her mother answers immediately for her, but April can't help but to loudly blurt out, "Yogurt!"

 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy almost trips over his own feet when Ann is the one who greets him at the hospital. He just wants to make sure April's okay, and now she's giving him a strange look and his heart's doing too many things at once. His brain, too - Andy's not sure if he should be feeling this way but somehow it's his fault. Maybe she'd be all right if he hadn't said anything? Could people get hurt from being heartbroken or whatever? But that wasn't it, because - clearly - April hated him. Maybe that was it; and maybe it was her total disinterest in him that made April have a whatever attack that put her in the hospital like this.

Ann's saying something but Andy only picks up the parts where she says April's name and her panicked voice.

"Is she okay?" Andy looks over her shoulder at the double doors flinging themselves open when people enter and exit.

"She's fine, mostly," Ann says with a slight smile before dropping it and shrugging. "Honestly, I don't know. She won't talk and her parents have to answer most of the doctor's questions for her. It's been going really slowly after the crash earlier."

"Oh my God, was she there?" Andy almost pushes past Ann but she stops him and chuckles.

"Andy, she wasn't there when it happened. It was almost an hour or two after... whatever happened, happened," Ann looks around and sighs. "Look, I probably shouldn't tell you this-"

"But that means you're going to anyways. Ann, you're awesome," Andy says without a smile, still looking over her shoulder. 

Squinting at him, she shakes her head. "They're going in to do a simple check on her right now, and if she fails it we'll know..." Ann looks over her back again, "and we'll know that she's had a stroke."

Andy just looks at her, a little unsure. "I thought that was something old people had?" he asks confused, because he's never heard of someone that young having something that serious sounding. Hell, he was older than  _her_ and he'd never had a stroke. "What's that mean?"

"Anyone can have one, Andy, and it's so variable and weird that we won't know until she passes or fails this," Ann shrugs again and taps her clipboard. "Just sit out here and I'll see if you can come in after the check, okay?" 

"Thanks so much, Ann," Andy gets out with a half-smile. "She's gonna be okay, right?"

Ann hesitates before putting on that fake little smile again. "Yeah, she's gonna be fine." Ann walks away and Andy falls back into the waiting room chair. 

She's definitely lying, but he wants to believe her. He just wants her to be okay, that's all. If she stopped doing whatever it was that was wrong with her and came out saying she still hated him that would be awesome only because she'd be okay. He doesn't even know what's happening to her - she's not talking, but is she acting weird? Is she throwing up? Andy wants to ask Ann all of those questions and more, but she's still gone and he has to sit there tapping his foot and waiting. 


	104. One Last Weekend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set at some point before they leave Pawnee for D.C. during/after "One Last Ride."
> 
> Remember when April bought a cabin from Ron? Well, the show didn't. We did though, and naekilosy on tumblr requested this one.

"We'll be away for the weekend, so if anyone tries to call any of our phones," April tells Leslie with a sour grimace, "you won't find us. Also, I might realize that I am a witch from the 19th century trapped in this body-"

"Yes, I'll take the necessary precautions," Leslie smiles and April's face takes on a wholly different demeanor. "We'll be moved in by the time you guys get started - we've already got everything furnished down there - so if you guys wanna come over and watch the triplets you're  _more_ than welcome."

"All right, weirdo. Just go to D.C. and tell me if I even need to be there," April smirks and hugs her, sending Leslie off on her way to get a nightmare trip started. 

Meanwhile, she had to get on with her moleman-like burrowing into their cabin one last time. Unlike Ron, and mostly because she's picked up a few things from Donna, April intends on selling that cabin for its market value - just like the newly booming district their asylum home was in - and making enough to keep them afloat in Washington. She's actually given more thought than necessary on that, and even  _planned_ her next few months' paychecks, and on that April groans aloud.

April has to remind herself that this is a fun adventure. This is what  _she_ wanted after all, right? But she can't think about that much longer because then she'll spiral back into the whole night with Andy after the last episode of Johnny Karate, and the cabin's supposed to be fun.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Babe, you packed Champion's stuff right?" Andy's thankfully paying more attention to the road than the dog, so when he asks that April can only nod and give a muffled mumble in response. "I'm gonna miss this place."

The cabin sat in a cleared grove, with a few sparse outcroppings of trees nearly concealing the only inroad. That road itself took them nearly two hours to travel, and by the time Andy figured out where he was going April still had to remind him that he shouldn't take any of the turns off the road. They haven't particularly kept it up to the same spec that Donna set it at when they tried to sell the cabin a few years back, but it's not ramshackle. April has too much respect for herself and Ron to let it fall apart. 

That led to many days where Andy attempted to repair anything. That usually ended with him wearing workman's overalls and large, gray gloves and then, when April realized he wasn't actually going to get much done and they'd need to call Ron to help, she realized how much she liked Andy in workman's overalls and large, gray gloves. 

"Yeah," she remarks finally, looking down at her hands and listening to the rumbling of dirt beneath the tires and Champion's panting. "Yeah, it's gonna be weird not having this place anymore."

"I mean, we've got a bunch of cool memories though," Andy wiggles his eyebrows at her and she smiles, a little weight removed from her, and his face softens. "Babe, do you wanna talk about it?"

April considers him for a second.  _That's why I love you_ , she's a moment from saying before realizing how stupid and cheesy it would be. "Nah, let's just have fun this weekend," April kisses him on the cheek and gets out of the car.

Champion bounds out, or rather bounds as well as he can because he's not that great at running, and immediately sits at the front door like he always does. He waits there patiently for April and Andy, because Andy took her wish seriously and she just laughs when he kisses the back of her neck at the trunk of the car. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Around midnight, April lies in bed playing with a curl in Andy's hair. Champion's curled out in the den in front of a dead fire, and they're in the bed all on their own this time with two of those huge, thick blankets draped over them.

April used to love Andy for the biggest, dumbest grins he'd get on his face just by being around her. They were the kind of smiles that made her chest burn a little and every inch of her skin feel more alive, and she still loves them. Now, though, she loves this look. Andy's eyes are half-closed, near sleep, and he's staring at her. Occasionally his eyes flicker over her face, or downward, but he keeps them focused on her. Likewise, he has the smallest of curls playing at his lips. 

Normally she would want to say something. Before, years and years back, she would feel the need to say something to him; and something about how it's the most important thing to her that he's like this and that she can be like this with him. 

Instead leans forward and kisses him, and then buries herself into him as close as physically possible. Andy immediately wraps his arms around her and she falls asleep faster than in the last few weeks.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The day after, Andy spends a lot of it walking around with Champion and April thinks about going with him. 

But that little, tiny worry comes back and she just shakes her head and hugs him, going back inside to sit by a window leading out towards the little forest trail he walked down. He's already gotten lost enough out here that he knows his way around by now, so April doesn't feel bad about sitting next to that window and reading. Expecting to get through at least a good chunk of the book she brought along with her, April's surprised when he comes back only an hour later with Champion in tow.

Opening the door, Champion bolts up to her and leaps into her lap in an instant. Curling up in her lap on that big, comfortable armchair, she can't blame him. But Andy kneels in front of her and looks at her expectantly, seriously.

"Babe," he says almost gravely.

April looks up, wary. "Yes?" she asks.

"I found a really cool cave that I didn't know was around here and I thought what better way to spend today than going inside of a dark, musty cavern with my wife," he says in a rush, looking side to side. "I mean, if you don't want to-"

"Andy, you just asked me if I want to go spelunking with you rather than read a book and act a thousand years old," April scoffs. 

"So, is that a...?" he trails off, waiting for her answer.

"It's a yes," she pats Champion and gets him to move off of her. Smiling, she thinks about how cool it could be inside. Or maybe that it'd be a hidden dwelling for some creature or other, and that maybe April could befriend it. 

The dog goes back to the chair and looks like he wants to nod off, basking in the light afforded by the sun through that window. April tells Andy they're just going to do a quick check today and then come back to prepare stuff for the next day. Andy grins and hugs her tight. Something about that, and how Andy immediately went and found something for her and for them to enjoy together really makes her think that they could go anywhere and it would be fine.

When they do check out the cave, it's disappointingly only a little more than a shelf on the edge of a higher ridge. They can only go a few feet in before it shrinks to a size that makes Andy clearly uncomfortable. Backing out, holding Andy's hand the whole time out of the small enclosure, April looks at him and catches disappointment there.

"What's wrong?" she brings it up, because she knows he won't say anything if she doesn't. 

"I thought it would be bigger than that. Sorry," Andy apologizes, downcast.

"So? I thought it was pretty cool. I think there was a fungus growing in there or something," April shrugs, slowing down their pace back to the cabin. "I probably should have tried to collect some of it and see if it grew into a monster."

Andy doesn't join her dark chuckling, instead biting his cheek. "I mean, we haven't really done anything out here this weekend and I wanted to do something cool and fun," he says slowly without looking at her.

"I thought that was fun. Besides, isn't fun just being out here with me and Champion?" April asks, not even remotely worried about that last part but wondering what he could be thinking. It always helped to lead Andy along a little to see what he struggled to get across. 

"Yeah, but that could be anywhere. This is, like, our cabin though. I thought we'd send it out with a bang, or something, before we left for Washington," Andy mumbles and finally looks at her.

"Andy if this is about Washington-"

"I know, it's what you want. It's what I want too, because you'll be happier there," Andy stops them and leans back against a thin, tall tree.

"We didn't have to do any of this. We could've stayed-"

"No, not really," Andy chuckles. "I mean, I could've stayed but you were going to go anyways."

"What is this?" April asks him, trying not to think about what he just said to her. 

"Hm?"

"Andy, what are you even saying?" she's gotten worse at masking herself around Andy, and he's gotten so much better at reading her. 

Without another break, his face changes from thoughtful to a widely borne grin. Walking forward, he smashes April into his arms. "Babe, I'm saying that it doesn't matter where we go or what we're doing. It's just gonna be awesome, y'know?"

"So why'd you want to send this cabin out with a 'bang,'" April quotes him and looks up, leaning her chin on his chest, "and why were you being so weird-?"

"You seemed bummed out about leaving Pawnee," Andy returns, meeting her look with that dumb grin. That huge, stupid smile that makes her match it because if she doesn't that overwhelming heat in her face and heart would melt all of her. "I wanted to make it one last awesome weekend, and we're out here just doing regular 'us' stuff. I thought that would bore you."

"Andy, if there's anything you should know it's that 'us stuff' is never boring," she moves her arms up his back a little because there's no other way for her to get any closer. "It's always awesome. I was just... y'know."

"I know, but I told you I don't care about that. You're the important thing-"

"So let's do this weekend right, and spend it whatever way seems cool at the moment," April nods, breaking away from him and taking his hand again, "and then we'll go to D.C. and it'll be just as awesome there. Because..."

"We're gonna do it together," Andy nods, and April walks with him back to the cabin.


	105. Fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested as another full bit on April and Ron's friendship. More explicitly April/Andy than the last one, as well.
> 
> Set at "some point" during S2. You know, my favorite time to write - some obscure, unknown point in time that we all vaguely remember!

Throughout the day, April does even less work than usual. Someone must have noticed by now, but no one says a word of it to her. At one point Ron gave her a sidelong glance that she picked up on, making him quickly turn back to looking at his monitor as if he was _actually_ reading it. Later in the day, just a few minutes before she was technically supposed to be off work, April wants to stay latched to that chair. It would be much easier to do this at home, behind a few closed and preferably locked doors, but moving is too hard.

Sitting there, feeling almost dead and completely listless, April doesn't bother to look up at Ron leaving his office for the day. She could've grabbed her jacket and bag and left hours ago, but instead sits there trying to figure out which part of Andy she hates the most at that second. Right then it's how blind he can be. She hates how he can look at her and not notice that she's a second from slapping him, kissing him, or both. Ron, noticing her still there and not taking yet another sanctioned - by him - early day, clears his throat awkwardly.

"Mmm," she murmurs. Words are too hard right now.

Ron takes a step forward, stops and looks sideways at her. Groaning, he stops. "You do know that you can leave now, April," he gestures at the doors.

"Mmm," she repeats, trying to figure out if she really does hate how blind he can be. The other side of that is how Andy can sometimes be incredibly selfless and how he sacrifices what little he has to help his friends, even Tom. "Sure," she finally says.

"Good," Ron adds without looking back at her. 

April doesn't move though. Her foot taps a little and she pushes aside a few small notepads of paper, staring at her phone and then back to the pads. He could be an idiot sometimes, a lot of the time really, but was that really a big deal? She could probably tell him the next day, straight to his face, and he wouldn't have heard her but was that really his fault? April was never very good at communicating things to other people - like Ron, who was still standing in front of her desk. He sighs loudly and takes a step closer to her desk.

Other than a few seconds of ringing, that April ignores completely, there's silence afterwards. As if he was expecting her to say something, Ron stands idly in that same spot. Rooted there, April finally looks up.

"You will..." Ron sighs again, looking down at the floor, "you will be fine."

She gives him a curious look but Ron just shakes his head. Something about him saying that, even just that little bit because of course Ron would only say a tiny bit to her, felt nice. For the first time that day she felt good. Not great, but a little bit better.

"Never mind," he says before making to turn around. She definitely heard his words, though.

"Thanks," April mutters.

He stops and his shoulders visibly fall like they've been loosened of some tightness or stress. April doesn't know why, but what he said - what little Ron said - was comforting. She picks up her things, locking her phone and shoving it into her pocket, before getting up to follow him out of the department. They leave for the parking lot separately, just like April knows Ron wants. No one needs to see which direction he leaves after the lot. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

This time it's because Andy's the worst person she's ever met. That's what she decides after lunch, at least.

When she goes back to her desk, Ron must notice the same blank look on her face because he sits on her desk and looks like he's about to dole out some fatherly advice. Instead he just nods and looks uncomfortable again. People must be looking because he quickly shifts away. Later, though, when it's after work and they're the only two other than Leslie there Ron just gives her that same, understanding look.

"You'll be fine," he repeats that day. 

Somehow he remembers that's what she needed to hear a week or so back. April didn't even really remember that's what he said until she was halfway to her car and thinking to herself about how much she hates  _him_. 

Or, maybe, she doesn't. At lunch, April actually says they should go out sometime. She doesn't say the word, "date" and she never explicitly says they should "go out." Now that she thinks about it, all she said was that they should do this more. This being, of course, sitting at the shoeshine stand. Half expecting him, and the other half  _wanting_ him, to say that she was amazing just like before. But he doesn't. 

"Awesome," is all he says.

In hindsight, her bitter, "ugh, whatever," wasn't necessary. 

Neither was her almost childish stomping off, leaving Andy sitting at the shoeshine waving her off and thinking it was just another day for April to be angry at someone else and not him. Because of course Andy wouldn't think that; and instead be in his own little world where everything was awesome and great, and no one hated anybody.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy always comes into work, but sometimes - very,  _very_ rarely though - Ron doesn't. Or, more accurately, he comes in and then proceeds to "take meetings" that Leslie sanctioned that amount to little more than hunting trips, steak breaks, or on this occasion a day at a cabin he never really specifies his ownership of. April knows better, though.

But, when the time comes for Andy to just smile stupidly at her all day and April to take out whatever she's dealing with on him, she doesn't have Ron to say that she'll be fine. Andy asked her if maybe they would do more than just hang out at the stand together, and instead of taking advantage of that April instead told him she was busy. She had no idea what she was busy with, but it was the first thing she thought of. 

"Oh, okay," he nods, understanding. "Maybe next weekend, or something?"

"I'm busy with a guy," she blurts out. 

Andy stops smiling for a second and looks away. "Okay," he adds, backing off and almost defeated.

What guy? April didn't want anything to do with whatever the hell she was masquerading as with Derek and Ben, and everyone else was terrible in comparison to  _him_. They didn't make her smile like he did, or pretend to be in a good mood like he did, or make up awful lies like this to make him jealous like  _he_ did. 

She doesn't take it back though, instead leaving him with it and hating herself just a little bit for saying something like that. All that time, the last few weeks, wasted on an off the cuff lie. April leaves early that day, not bothering to put in her next three hours or even mention it to anyone. She takes a long drive farther out from Pawnee than she's gone, at least in something that isn't a plane, and realizes how much open field there is this far out. 

After about an hour of driving, and realizing that if she doesn't stop now she won't make it back to the gas station she passed up, April stops and surveys what's around her. There isn't much in a field save for corn, but on the opposite side of the road at the shoulder she turned off into is a huge tree. Not much else is in the field, just that tree. It looks staggeringly tall even from that distance, just a few minutes' walk, and when she gets closer the large, burly limbs stand out farther and the height impresses her more. Something about it seems like it's been there before, and it's seen the same things over and over only to weather it all; to stand strong in the face of it all.

April sits down at the base of it, near where a series of roots jut out like naked veins. Sitting on one of them, the tree towers over her more even with an empty bough above her head and dead leaves around her. Even in the face of that it seems strong and reliable. It wouldn't be going away anytime soon, and April likes the idea of that. Maybe it's because touching the bark and feeling it craggy and cold, just when she thinks it's all her fault, she can hear four words repeating in her head. Not in that same, gruff and low voice, but in her own. Soon, April realizes she's saying them aloud.

"You will be fine," she mutters, moving her hand from the bark of the tree and standing up slowly. Walking back to her car, she takes one look back at the tree and repeats it again, like a mantra in her head: "You will be fine."


	106. Drunken Rides and Clown Makeup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) as "5 times Andy gave April a piggyback ride."
> 
> Thought we could use some simple fluff. One of them isn't actually Andy giving April a piggyback ride but it's such a ridiculous thing I wrote that I hope it's okay anyways!

"Hey April!" Andy shouted at her while he crouched in front of Leslie.

"What're you doing?" she asked slowly, watching Leslie hook her arms around his neck and go into giddy giggling fits. 

"Piggyback rides!" Leslie and Andy scream at the same time. Andy smiles wide and looks at April seriously. "You're next," he says before breaking into a chuckle.

April tried her best not to smile but she couldn't help it, making Andy laugh even harder. He sped off quickly, leaving her to sit in one of his chairs and wait patiently for him to come back. Just when she thought he'd forgotten about her, Andy came blasting from her left and quickly squat down. Without a word she hopped onto him, planting her legs firmly into his sides and dangling on him still when he screeched and started sprinting. 

He made sure to keep a good, firm hold of the back of her thighs though. That was kind of cool, she guessed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

April poked at Andy a few times, trying to get his attention. She could barely keep her eyes open, and when they did bother to not droop she couldn't focus on  _anything_ either. Andy, likewise, was sitting there with a very bizarre look on his face somewhere between elation and drunken stupor. To be fair, they were both incredibly drunk.

"Andy," she said low, like someone would catch her. "Andy."

He just turned to look at her, the same look there. God, why was that so funny? She started laughing and couldn't stop, and it wasn't long before Andy joined in. After that, it only took another giggle from a poke by Andy before she had big, warm hands tickling her over her shirt and sending them rolling around.

"Andy!"

He finally stopped when she half-screamed that out, but she was pleasantly out of breath when he sat up against the couch on the floor. April got up behind him and draped her legs over his shoulders.

"I need water," she slurred.

"Oh..." he nodded, understanding and grabbing her shins.

"Onward!" she shouted when he got up to his knees.

Unfortunately, their drunken piggyback ended prematurely when Andy got to one foot and flopped over. April was sent flying backwards onto the couch while Andy slumped into the floor and started laughing uncontrollably. April couldn't help joining in when it turned out he was okay from face-planting into the carpet. Eventually the humor dried up, but Andy started staring at April in that singular way that made her realize that getting drunk with him never ended poorly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

If April took all the times Andy was ridiculous and balled them up into one, none of them would match this. April took way too much time applying the white and red makeup and bothered too much with the wigs, but Andy was busy romping around in an overlarge suit with clown makeup poorly applied and giving Leslie's kids piggyback rides. They could probably tell who it was underneath all the caked on powders and application, but it didn't matter because they were laughing like it was the funniest thing ever.

Leslie and Ben stood by watching them. Birthday parties for three kids had to be impossible to set up and April wondered how hard it would be to set one up.

Shaking that thought away, once again, she grabbed her bag of sock puppets and walked behind the little theater set up for the Morbid Mystery Hour. While the triplets took turns - and eventually all three of them at once - getting piggyback rides around the yard, April took to uncorking vials of fake blood and smearing them across the dolls.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Watching Andy walking around with Jack on his shoulders, holding his hands and laughing with him, made April feel oddly calm and peaceful. Things felt perfect watching them both like that, and walking around a circus fairground with their son was a breath of fresh air. Literally, since Andy was the most paranoid father she'd ever seen. She didn't have much experience there, but she did know Ben.

When they finished their stroll around, looking at petting zoos and the ten-thousandth awful Li'l Sebastian impersonator, April was glad to be sitting in the car again. Her feet killed her all the way back home, and she was glad to get a microscopic nap in while Jack got his as well. 

At home, after Andy put Jack down she sat back in the couch. Not wanting to get up, she pointed down in front of her feet. Understanding - this happened all the time - Andy crouched in front of her and she lazily slid onto his back and he walked her back to the bedroom where she fell asleep almost instantly. Not before she felt Andy squeeze next to her and wrap his arms around her, though. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jack couldn't see them in the audience. If anything, he expected his dad to be there but his mom missing from the ceremony was maybe a little more heartbreaking. In the last few years he'd seen a side of her that he didn't even know existed - something less terrifying and wholly unearthly. Maybe that came out in her more because of his sister or because everyone was worried about his dad. But Jack definitely tried to think more about his awesome little sister, Robbie, than his dad's heart problems.

She was there, sitting in the audience and smiling at him. That made walking up to shake hands with the Dean and accept his diploma a little easier.

And suddenly, when he turned to look out for a picture that he didn't think was coming, a tall figure with pure white hair came bursting through the auditorium doors with a wild yell. On his back was a much smaller figure with grey streaks and large rimmed glasses on, screaming bloody murder and with a camera held high in her hand. The camera flashed in the middle of him laughing and the Dean looking bewildered at his parents running down the aisle.

It couldn't have been more perfect.


	107. Disembodied - II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April takes a test and Andy gets to see her.

April wants to scream when of course it's  _Ann_ who's there, but she literally can't.  _Scream_ , she thinks,  _just scream to prove I can do it_. But she can't. 

While people talked all around her, April realizes she's stuck there. It can't have been longer than an hour or two but something as simple as talking to people is impossible to figure out -  _what the fuck is going on and why can't I just tell Ann to go away? -_ and it feels like being a child all over again. She isn't in control of anything and that terrifies April more than anything else about all of this. At least if she broke her leg the possibility to yell at Ann and, likely, Andy would still exist.

The thought makes her eyes flicker to the door as if expecting him to follow in, but there isn't anyone there that intends on entering the room. Instead, April's stuck in here with a doctor who crouches and Ann's saying something to her parents but all of the words are a total mess in her head.

"She's-" she can make out that it's her they're talking about, "complications... test-" she can sort of tell what that means but it just sounds like another jumble.  _  
_

"April," a voice from somewhere says to her.

Turning, unsure, she sees the doctor staring at her. April stops and gives what she thinks is a slight nod, but there's no way for her to tell if that's what happened. So April just slumps forward like she's listening.

"I need you to do something," the doctor says.  _Okay,_ she takes a breath,  _I understood all of that_. "Do you-" but April forgets what the rest of the words even are.

For a few seconds everything turns blurry and hazy, just like those words and her right arm. _Understand_ , she thinks hard.  _I understand_. But of course her mouth won't take the time to figure out the signals and her brain isn't particularly interested in sending well-formed thoughts back to her. All of it makes her want to either strangle someone or curl up in a ball and escape, but the usual method of escape feels fuzzy and makes it hard to think.

"Understand," April manages to mumble shakily. It feels great, but she sounds like a tiny child.  _I understand and I'm not an idiot_ , she tries to will out but the only that comes out, again, is, "Understand." _  
_

The doctor eyes her and then speaks very clearly. "I need you to take-" pointing somewhere towards April, "your right arm, and touch your left knee." 

 _Okay,_ April thinks,  _that's easy as hell_. Any regular person should be able to move their right arm and touch their left knee, at least as long as they had those limbs. But the moment she thinks about it, and the words right and left actually process, none of it works. She looks at what she thinks is her left knee but after a moment of concentration April realizes she's been staring at her right. Then her left hand when she thought it was her right, but again none of it makes any sense.

She tries to get it to move -  _it, what it?_ \- and comes into the same infuriating, awful roadblock: what the hell is her right? Again, that blurry mess of directions comes over her and April squints hard to look through it. All that comes up is a rough shake of her right side. It's the best she can do, and April sort of wants to cry.

The doctor stands and walks over to her parents. Saying something to them, Ann looks at her with pity like that's something she needs from her and her parents have shocked faces. Again, the words start to melt by her until April wants to curl up and get away from everything. Thankfully enough, she can manage to move her legs and do just that - ball up and avoid saying another stupid thing like  _understand_.  _Understand_ , April repeats in her head or thinks she does because now she doesn't know if she's thinking the word or the idea or any of that whatsoever,  _I understand you but you can't tell what I'm saying_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Another five minutes must have passed, that's all, but to Andy they feel like hours within themselves. Each tap of his foot sends another series of awful nerves through him until his foot falls again.  _Tap_ and then a jolt, then he sweats a little bit, and before he knows it Andy's heart is practically beating out of his body. He doesn't anything about medicine, but maybe something about this was his fault. That's the only thought he has the entire time throughout the waiting. After those five minutes, Ann returns with a much less positive attitude and she isn't even hiding it.

"Hey, Andy," she says slowly, almost like he saw those zookeepers say to the animals. "I need you to stay sitting for a bit, okay?"

"Um, sure," he nods probably too quickly, almost getting whiplash from his nervous rocking. "Okay, okay, okay."

"So, now we know-" she takes a breath, "now we're almost positive it's a stroke, and that could mean a lot of different things. She's responsive and aware, but she simply can't communicate."

"What's that all mean?" he asks, wondering if he even wants to know.

"You can talk to her, but she won't necessarily say anything back. If she says anything it might be totally indecipherable, too," Ann's arms slump and she takes a step forward. "I'm sorry Andy. It's all here-" she points to her head, "and you remember what I told you about stuff that happens there?"

"Oh, um... you said that the central nervous system is a highly sensitive network barely protected by our big dumb bones, and that when things go wrong they go _really_ wrong and it's hard to repair any damage done," he repeats almost from memory, because he does remember that. He remembers how bad brain stuff could be too. His granddad had something wrong up there, as well, but people just called him crazy back then and he never got the kind of treatment he needed. 

"Yeah, that's right. I'm not saying anything that we know for certain, and honestly I shouldn't tell you any of this," she shrugs and takes another breath, picking at her sleeve as she talks. "We'll have to monitor her for the night and see if anything changes."

Andy nods along to her words, but he picks up something different this time. Before there was a feigned hope and a little smile that he knew was fake now, but Ann lost all of that in her last few sentences. He wondered if he should give up on that, too, but then Ann speaks up again.

"You can come in, at least for now," she motions for him and walks towards those doors he wanted to burst through a few minutes before. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

When April sees him walk through the doorway she partly wants him to go away and another bit of her is so ecstatic she could jump out of the bed. He stands hesitant at the threshold, holding onto the doorway and peering in. If Andy was ever awkward or uncomfortable, he definitely is now and he looks at her parents and then at her again. He still doesn't say a word, but Andy stands at the doorway and looks at her. 

She can't tell if it's pity or fear, but his eyes are full of something she's never seen in them before. The jovial playfulness is gone from his face and Andy looks almost scared for her, if April had to figure out what the hell it was.  _Why are you afraid_ , she tries to yell out but only slurs something,  _I'm the one stuck like this_. It's true, though - Andy's standing there and if he wanted to he could ask her parents what's wrong. April can't. She can't just get up and ask someone to help her or tell them what's wrong if she even wanted to, so all April can do is stay curled up in her self-imposed catatonia and try not to look at him when he leaves and lets her to sit in her head, all alone.

Instead she sees him cross over to her parents, slowly again, and say something to them. 

"April?" Ann's voice hits her suddenly, almost from nowhere in particular. "April-" but again Ann's words drift off in her head and smash around like senseless noise more than anything else.

"Ah... Away," she sounds out, grateful that she can at least say something even if it's in response to words she can't fully figure out.

It's so fucking infuriating, she thinks right then, to look up and see everyone talking and circling her like a wounded animal and all April can do - the only  _control_ she has at all - is to recede further and hope it would all pass. Ann does thankfully walk away, because April sees her go over to Andy and touch his shoulder. The growl that escapes is definitely from her, but April can't remember making that sound. 

Andy turns around and looks at her before shrugging Ann off and sitting down in the little chair nearest the bed. Seeing him brush her off so easily was a good thing to catch, but she isn't going to bother turning to look at him. Instead, she's going to continue staring ahead through her laced fingers with half-closed eyes and wandering thoughts. Andy probably says  _something_ but she sure as hell can't figure it out.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy gets to stay for a little while longer for reasons he isn't sure about. April sits there all the same, though, with legs pulled up and knees at her chin. She doesn't look at him for a while, instead staring into the wall and it makes Andy wonder what she could be thinking about. 

"I'm the worst friend ever," Andy says plainly, her parents gone for the moment. April still doesn't look at him. "I dunno how, but this is probably my fault, right? I probably coulda done something if I was there when this happened, but I couldn't."

She doesn't bother to turn her head. She's still balled up and Andy hates seeing her this way - there's no snarky comeback, no snide remark, and she isn't smiling at all. Maybe that was childish to hope for, but hey - if he was anything it was a hopeful child grown up. 

"I'll stick around until you get better, though," he adds. "After that, when you want me gone I'll go." 

For a few moments he wonders if anything got through to her at all. It was possible that everything he was saying wasn't getting processed right - something about her language and an aphasia, whatever that word meant - but Andy could keep talking all night if at least something made sense to her. April, then, turns her head slightly and looks at him. She doesn't smile or say anything, but she doesn't look away either. 

"I mean, you'll want me to go," he nods as he talks  _at_ her more than with her. "You hate me. That's... okay, I guess, but I hope you'll be able to make fun of me by tomorrow. You can hate me out loud then, right?" _  
_

April tilts her head again and he thinks something might have gotten through. 

"I could tell you stories-"

"Won't," she says in a fumbling tone. The word looks like it takes an effort for her to get out, but April doesn't look away from him. "Won't make you." 


	108. Perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested on tumblr as when April and Andy tell Leslie and Ben that she's pregnant. 
> 
> Although I wrote it rather quickly in #100 the canon timeline doesn't add up for that, unless they couldn't conceive immediately. ANYWAYS, here we are now.

April's already sat them down. They already know, most likely, because they're not total idiots. Andy isn't either, but he definitely didn't know what she was telling him about a month before. That was fair, since she had been up in the air about this leading up to her decision, constantly trying to figure out what she really wanted. 

"So," she folded her hands on her knees because that looked appropriate, "I wanted to come over and tell you guys something really important-"

"And awesome," Andy chimed in, staring at her the whole time. 

Nothing had  _really_ changed between them in nearing fifteen years - and when she thought about that it was oddly cool, dizzying, and comforting all at once - but Andy had an almost unbelievable awe on his face now. It was like this was a pipedream, or some sort of impossible feat or goal, and now that April agreed to do it he had never been happier. That was definitely a part of what changed her mind; knowing that this is what he wanted was part of marriage and part of their implicit deal, anyways. They would either have children or not, there wasn't much of an in between and April had already thought of adoption. 

One part was Andy being so immeasurably happy. 

"Right, and it is awesome," she added, taking his hand.

"Oh boy," Leslie said slowly, sudden realization dawning on her. Her face visibly crumpled a little, but Ben smirked and moved closer to her. Prepared, or seemingly less ready to break, she nodded and sniffed. "Okay, what's up?"

"We're-"

"I'm so happy for you!" Leslie screamed and shot up. Wrapping her arms around April, Leslie made a bunch of other, maybe just as bizarre and annoying sounds. 

"I didn't even get to tell-"

"Because we've been waiting on this day, and Tom owes me twenty bucks now. Obviously he'll never keep with his bet, but that's not the point!" Leslie said all of this excitedly, bouncing back and forth between April and Andy, and Ben. "You're pregnant and this is going to be maybe the greatest child ever."

"Babe, we have kids," Ben pointed behind him to the stairwell. "Three of them, actually."

"Shut up, Ben, this is going to be the most awesome kid ever," April piped in, giving him a slight scowl before Andy's overflowing enthusiasm couldn't be bottled up anymore.

"I can't believe she said she'd do it," he said, still staring at her. "It's gonna be the coolest baby."

"Wait, you can't believe she said yes?" Leslie suddenly stopped and gave Andy a wary look. "April, this is your decision you know that, right?"

"Leslie, what do you think he's gonna do? Hold me down and  _make_ me have a baby?" she gave Andy a look that told him maybe the first half of that would be worth trying. "Of course this is my decision. Besides, we already agreed that I can change my mind at any time."

"Right," Andy nodded, but never dropped that joy in his eyes.

That was another part. Andy understood that she wasn't against it, she just didn't know if it was what she wanted. After spending half a year searching for what she wanted professionally, she left some of the rest of her life on hold. So when she said she might change her mind, even though she'd need some nearly miraculous power to make her see anything other than Andy's eyes widening and his smile expanding when she told him she wanted to do it, and he thought it was just obvious that she could, that made her continue going. Even if he wasn't traditionally the most intelligent person, he had an almost uncanny knack for responding to her. Andy knew no one could make April Ludgate-Dwyer make  _any_ decisions forcefully or no, and she loved that respect. 

That was probably the other half, or most of it. Whatever was left of her that was unsure about it would have to remember all of the sex that would lead up to the actual baby being born. That would clean up any gaps nicely.

"Oh, sure," Leslie nodded and looked at Ben with a brief glare. "That seems reasonable, right Ben?"

"Of course," he stammered out. "I didn't know if we were ever going to hear this news." Everyone looked at him as if he had said something remarkably uncouth or stupid, so he quickly fought for another word in. "I mean, I thought this was entirely what Andy wanted and I've never known April to give in to anything just because someone she loved wanted it. Like Leslie and the National Parks, and I assumed this was going to be like that."

"Yeah, well you're stupid and I think Leslie should have divorced you years ago," April shrugged, "but you have kids now and that would be just cruel of you."

"Oh, honey," Andy kissed her cheek and pulled her to kiss him full on the lips. "You are so hot when you're mean."

"Okay, please don't conceive this baby on my couch," Leslie said, scooting them off when his hand moved somewhere that was decidedly  _not_ her face. "Go do that on your couch, or your kitchen table or counter. Maybe your laundry room - oh, definitely on your-"

"Good Lord, Leslie," Ben quipped as April and Andy made their way out of the house.

"Just not in the car!" she added after them, just before they closed the door. "At least not where my kids can see you!"


	109. Disembodied - III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy tells April a story and asks her a question, whether he knows it or not.

"So, I was six, right? I had just gotten my, uh... I was fat still," Andy says, but April must have missed most of what he was saying. Some of it droned on but he doesn't move an inch; and he hasn't, not since the first one about his pet snake, Sir Wigglesworth. "So anyways, I was six and fat and got pushed off of a roof once."

Andy, the king of the anticlimactic story, begins another one. What little she can piece together, and that's becoming more and more as time passes on, just keeps her in that little self-cradling position for a while. His pet snake makes her turn her head and shift entirely to facing him. It's a tight fit on the bed, but she still looks over at him and makes sure to figure out any facial expressions she can do to make it obvious she's listening to him. It doesn't seem to bother him that she can't really say anything back, though, as Andy takes his promise to tell her stories as serious as her stroke.

 _Stroke_ , she repeats in her head.  _I had a stroke._

April heard the doctor say something about it to her parents. The word stroke pops up more often around her now, as in from zero to ever at all, and it's weird to hear aimed at her. Whatever they wanted to call it, as long as she got to say a few words to someone it'd be much better. One person in particular - the one person that told April he thought she hated him. 

"Um, I don't know if you've ever rode on a motorcycle but... they're super fun. Except when you think you're good enough to drive one yourself," Andy taps his chin, looking at her thoughtfully. "Then you just kind of fall over after starting one and aren't strong enough to hold it up. My uncle super hated that."

He keeps tapping his chin and maintains that furtive look. April, meanwhile, wonders which part made him think she hated him. It was likely the part where she said she didn't want to date him or be around him anymore.  _Said_ , she thinks.  _All I did was say it, you dork. Obviously I didn't mean it._

But Andy wasn't the kind of person that needed to be walked around like that. He wasn't the brightest, sure, but that didn't matter at all to her. Instead he made her smile and laugh, more than anyone ever honestly, and that was such a feat in itself that April could scarcely believe he bothered to sit there and tell her meaningless stories about himself and about things he'd seen that day. Even in the past few hours, Andy still bothers. That must have been what mattered to her, before anything else. Still sitting there in that chair, apparently pondering over his thoughts more than she'd ever seen him do, and Andy tries again. That was her usual test on people, and Andy so far seems to have passed spectacularly. 

"There's a super cool coupon weekend going on over at the pizza place a block down from my place," he adds in with an almost kinetic emphasis. "I mean, I save all those coupon things where you punch holes in them or whatever. If you bring in 'em all you can take like six pizzas back."

Tilting her head curiously at him, all April can manage now is, "Hm?"

 _Fucking say it_ , she tries to screech out.  _I'll go eat six stupid pizzas with you and yes it will be a date._ But, no. None of that escapes her mouth. 

The few things she said before this, the doctors weren't at all surprised by. She could say broken sentences and little things here and there, a little in English some in Spanish, but they said it was part of her language center trying to send signals and basically coming up short. So, her little yogurt outburst an hour too late made a little more sense. Her inability to function like the old April was starting to be less a comforting removal and actually scare her, though. Sure, a phrase here and there could get the point across but what if she couldn't even do that in an hour or two? She can't even say a real word anymore, and that frightens her that the doctors won't say a word about it.

Curling back up into her tight, safe ball, April watches him continue with a stutter. It's actually, honestly, kind of cute. And thinking that, even that one word, is a little disgusting. Except that it's Andy, so she's fine thinking he's cute with his face scrunched up and chasing his words without success.

"I, um, that wasn't a date, or anything. I mean, I'll buy you pizzas when you get out. Like, six or seven," he quickly gets out, "but only if you want it. I mean, you like pizza right? Of course you do, everyone loves pizza."

"Yeah," she says on instinct. 

Andy's eyes light up immediately. She can't say anything else, try as she might, but she  _did_ say something on reaction. It felt real and normal, and makes her look at him, shocked. Andy, though, just looks as jubilant as ever. He only sits forward and smiles, before something apparently catches his attention behind her or in his line of sight that makes Andy return to sitting stock still and back in the chair. 

A few more minutes pass and, try as she might, April can't put the sequence together that made that little response come out. One more word is all that would do, but nothing. So she relegates herself to listening to Andy talk awkwardly around the fact that he technically asked her out in the middle of a very serious, traumatic experience. That, in all honesty, makes struggling to find her words have a bigger purpose than to yell at people at the Food 'n Stuff or groan at Ann. Having a little ambition, even if it was for something as stupid as another person, is a nice change of pace. Andy was a nice change of pace in general, actually.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A few more minutes pass and April realizes she's heard everything he's said now. Nothing drops off into an incomprehensible squeal, and the words he says have meaning to them instead of being a dull, pointless void of noise. It's exciting, but she can't get her hopes up like when she was saying some words or responding with a reflex rather than thinking way too hard about it. Now she just lies back in bed and looks over through the window in her room.  _Dark_ , she thinks.  _It's dark outside, and no one's come in for hours to tell him to leave._

April's okay with that, though.

"I'm starting to run out of stuff to say," he laughs and folds his hands. " I, um, I could read from a magazine, or something?"

"Andy, I can read," she says immediately.

It's been happening more and more though, and Andy keeps asking her questions. She answers them sometimes, and when she does he looks as happy as he always is around her. Well, as he usually is. When she can't say anything and likely has a distressed look on her face - or at least she thinks she does, because she widens her eyes and purses her lips in frustration - he just goes back to thinking and asking her things. Something will break through, he must be thinking.

 _It kinda already has,_ she thinks.

"Okay, but do you want me to get you one?" he adds on, hoping to get something out of her.

Something that won't ever come. "No thanks," she thinks and it comes out. "No thanks," she repeats.

Andy smiles wider. "What kinda magazines do you even read, anyways? Whatever, that doesn't matter. I have to go get someone-"

"Andy," she stops him. Just like that, with a word that comes out just as she wants it to and so neatly, "Andy, wait."

"What's up?" he asks, shooting up from the chair. 

"Can you hear me?" she says because this might all be a dream or a hallucination. Maybe April will wake up to Andy snoring in his chair or gone altogether, never having been there in the first place.

She's probably stuck there still. None of these words have come out and when Andy comes in reality he'll get mad at her for not saying a word, and she hates that she can't but now it's better because he's rightly an asshole and she gets to be correct in her initial assumptions about him instead of having to deal with the fact that some things are and can be her fault too. Some of the things that have happened are his fault, and some of the misgivings and general stupidity has been hers too, but it's a whole lot easier to deal with a reality where none of that needs to come into play and April gets to be right again.

But she'll wake up, and he can't hear her at all. So, in that tiny second after she asks him that, April can almost feel her heart collapsing under the weight of that question.

"Yeah, I can," he answers her. "I'll, um, I'll go grab someone and then get out of here-"

"Why?" she wants to know. Or maybe she wants him to know that he doesn't have to go.

"You'll want me out of your hair, so I'll tell a doctor you're saying stuff and they'll get me out of here anyways," he adds sheepishly, but he's right about the second half.

"I told you I won't make you go," she wants to get up and hug him, probably kiss him too, but her skin feels tingling and her right leg feels so strange and still mildly distracting to consider moving.

"Oh, is that what you were saying?" he says with an amusing mix of realization and profound confusion on his face. "Weird, I thought you wanted me to go."

"So why'd you stay?" she's honestly talking just to talk now. Asking that questions could be a death sentence for her but instead she just wants to keep hearing the words come out of her mouth quickly and fluidly. "If you thought I hated you and wanted you to leave why'd you bother? It's kind of rude to even stay if you thought that-"

"Sorry," Andy looks down and opens the door. "I'll go."

He leaves before she can get another word out. She even  _told_ him that she wanted him to stay, and yet she had to say something that made him confused or reconsider everything. There isn't much she can do when a doctor walks in, though. April has to bother herself answering the doctor instead of getting out of bed and asking Andy to stay and tell her more stories. Or, better yet, let her tell him some of her own now that she can say more than a word every few minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clear up a little confusion some people may have, an expressive aphasia (what's described in this story) is a failure in the language center of your brain. That, in turn, can screw up some motor function in your right side and make your understanding, usage, and relation to language very foggy and poor. That's just a tiny, microscopic part of a stroke like this. Complications extend beyond simple speech and understanding, though, and may appear in the form of speech impediments, misunderstanding words, and honestly things we take for granted every day.
> 
> However, I plan on having a chapter or two after this to work on some more things and we may see more than just angsty April and sad Andy!


	110. Cut - After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been over two months since the last chapter that continued this series. Not a request today, though. Way to go me, real smart... back everything up even more! As always, though, don't be afraid to send in requests or prompts on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com). The schedule isn't as keenly honed as before, but I will get to your request!
> 
> Anyways, there you go. I like second person perspective an awful lot, and think it has a lot of power, but I haven't yet given it a shot with P&R. Some minor self-harming visuals and concepts of suicide, existential doubt, and disaffectation, so be aware of that friends.

You know what it's like to live life like you're on the edge of a breakdown. Everything you walk past feels like an excuse to collapse to the ground and give up, and everything you deal with every day feels like a reason to stop caring, but you go on anyways. Despite a voice in your head, and not because of it, you shoulder through the concern that drapes itself over every little thought and each second of your life. You remember what it's like to pretend and think that's okay, like sitting around and wondering who would even care if you just took a step too far into traffic was fine or if you found the highest building you could and keeled over a railing or open window. It's like finding a nearly dull kitchen knife in your apartment and carving into your arm just because it's too damn difficult to explain to Andy, who tries his best and he's so good for her, that you just want to scream into an empty void for a full day just to get some of this agony out. Disgusting scars worm their way onto your wrists and over your forearms, and you have to get used to wear longsleeved shirts again, and you think that this is going to make everything the same all over again. The same cycle of day in, day out, where you don't even remember which hour is which or what event is what but you're certain it's a different day. You expect all of this and more, just like you expect things to be the same.

You wake up at four in the morning, afraid of everything, like you always do. Some things don't change. This is one of them, and sitting against that wall just to feel the cold air creaking through the poorly insulated walls and window is all you need. Something about it feels like a change, but only because your hands are freezing and you can swear it feels so good just to feel  _anything_ at all. 

Covers will shift beside you and it'll be obvious because the apartment is very small and the distance is less than your extended arm. His feet kick over to where yours used to be on the bed, but they meet no resistance. You know he'll figure it out but until then, which might be never, you sit back against the wall and try to let the hours pass like they always seem to every other day. But they don't. Now you're thinking about it, and thinking is a death sentence for you. Every time you sit to think about it, nothing makes sense. If you had the chance to sit down and let the time slide between your fingers, you could never make that decision to let it happen - you could only  _let_ it happen. It's all because you have no power, and no control; and it's all because you don't have anything to give besides your time, which is worthless anyways. You have nothing to give and it hurts to think about, but at least the time passes faster when you do. 

He eventually gets up and sits next to you. It's not much, but it works. An arm works its way around your back and though it isn't pulling you in or asking anything of you, it can be enough. 

You put your head on his shoulder because, in some stupid, childish way, you feel like you're putting some of your weight on him. It's selfish, but he accepts it. He always accepts your weight. Your burden feels lighter when he's there to pick up the slack, and you know it makes you a bad person to hoist this onto him when all Andy can do is smile and take it without a care in the world other than making you feel better. But you both know you won't, and yet you give in because while he can't dig to the core of the problem and totally unhinge it from you he can at least make you smile at times like these. When everything feels like a black sludge you're wandering through, feet stuck in each step and half-step like you're lost and searching for your way when in reality you've never had a goal in the first place, he can rest his hand on your shoulder and pull you closer, tighter. Push your head closer to his chest and let your nose dig into his skin. Take in every breath like a fresh new scent, even though you've memorized the way he smells, because you're selfish. You don't deserve it, that's what you tell yourself, but he lets you in anyways.

You never let him in, save those scant few days when you're breaking apart and crying into his shoulder until the sun shows your red eyes clearly to him, but he'll let you back in every single time. When he asks if you're fine, you eye the knife block and tell him you're doing great. Yet he doesn't say anything about your lies, or how you tell him that everything's okay when it's a hell you're caught in forever, and you love him for not holding you to one word or thing you've said. He moved out of his hometown and followed you because it's what you wanted, but even then you wonder why he did it. Why would he bother uprooting himself - though from what, you're unsure - when all you're going to do is sit there blinking away wetness in your eyes with your head on his shoulder. Like a broken, deadly weight that's constantly threatening to drop itself onto him in the worst ways, and yet he straps that onto his back and smiles back at you before moving on. Because only Andy can do that for you, and that's okay too. Looking up at him even in the dark, where she can barely make out his face but that too is memorized and etched into your head, his smile is striking against the background of the night. It's what you need and although you're not sure if you've given up just yet, he'll be willing to open up and let you in again.

You kiss him, lightly, with your backs against the wall because he wouldn't let you apologize for it. Both times you attempted it, with him in your life, and he could've thought you were broken. He could've thought it was your fault his life wasn't going anywhere with her in it, or that it was his fault for making her like this, but he didn't. In the end, all he wanted was for her to get better. All those days he'd stay in and make sure you were comfortable and eating, skipping too many classes to catch up because you don't want to move, and you want to tell him that his ability to carry you through this is what you need. Maybe there's something wrong there, and you should find help elsewhere and Andy would be okay with that, but it's not what you want. What you want is him saying that you'll be okay. Not better, no, because they both know better is relative and getting there will take time. But, until then, you can be okay. What you want is Andy sitting there for a while and eventually standing up and going back to bed with him.

Facing each other, you spend a few minutes just lying there. No words, no kissing, or anything. You just sit there and it's right. He's enough, and you know that but sometimes he doesn't. So Andy takes all of your burden he can because he wants you to know he'll do it time and time again even though you know he shouldn't. You, selfishly, give it to him willingly. It hurts, but he carries it too now. Not because he thinks like you or because you're his or anything. You just know he loves you, and what that means to him is that you've permanently taken up home within him. You know that means he's going to, naturally, take your weight because when you're on his back and he's giving you a piggyback ride you can smile. Not better, but okay.

After you hurt yourself again, you wanted him to be okay with you. He was.

After you told him that you laid marks into your arm because you got to feel  _something_ and feel it so forcefully, you wanted him to understand. He did.

After you nearly killed yourself, you wanted to apologize. He wouldn't let you.

After you hurt yourself again, you wanted him to say nothing. 

He did, but it was enough.

After you told him you cut yourself because then time didn't feel like a standstill somehow also caught in a whirlwind, you wanted to avoid his pity.

He had none, and you still don't believe that.

After you came to with bloodshot eyes and bruises on your neck, you wanted him to go away and let you do it.

He didn't, and you're thankful.

After all of that and more, you remember waking up and with tears in your eyes you told him you loved him. You told him that you're so sorry for trying to end your own life, but he doesn't accept your apology. Andy, instead, just takes up and holds onto you telling you to talk about it with him. Instead of asking for an apology and thinking that it will relieve himself of what you continuously drop onto his shoulders, all he does is wipe at your face with his hand and make you want to curl up with him for another ten days and never get out of bed. Left with something like disappointment, you think he's not considering that you were a moment from no longer existing, you realize he knows. This is why you're selfish - you think only of your own perspective. In one way, it's the only one that matters because it  _is_ your life. However, you know why he smiles. He does it because you do it, and because when you do actually bother to flash a grin it's real and he knows that by now. 

But he knows, and maybe more than you. His hand has a matching disfigurement now. A prickly, bumpy displacement of skin scarred over horribly on his palm where he caught his hand on the fixture in the ceiling that held you up. When you saw it, and how it made his ability to play guitar almost nonexistent, something broke a little. He would never be able to play the same way he could before you were in his life, and it's your fault. When you tell him that, though, he gets mad. Andy has only been angry with you one other time your entire life - when he thought you didn't have any emotions and didn't care at all about him. Likewise, you thought he'd want to go back and take away what he'd done so that he could actually sit down and write songs without an immense pain in his arm. The doctor said something about permanent nerve damage and you hate yourself for doing that to him on top of making him witness that scene in the apartment. Not to mention the security deposit they lost because of her stupidity.

He got mad because you thought him playing guitar mattered more than you did. You know that there's more to it than that. He knows what you think about yourself in those bleak hours, even when you're in bed staring at him like now, but this one shakes him. You want to curl up in bed with him for hours because he thinks like that. He acts on it. When you cry, he doesn't have pity. There's only comfort and understanding. You don't want him to see you like that because, to you, that thin line separating yourself from him completely is all that's left from making you a complete, total burden on him. When you sniff and blink rapidly, he's still there. When you push yourself tight up on him at the morning hour you've lost track of, that black sludge goes away and time empties itself around you without the need of the world around it to fold in, breaking you even further. He's okay with that, and you're not better but doing all right. Not better, but the way he smiles into your hair and holds you close is okay. 

After this, you think he'll disappear. He's only a dream, some figment of your imagination, and you don't deserve it. You'll wake up and he'll be gone. After this, he'll leave you with all your weight back on your shoulders to carry it the rest of the way to the finish line or, more likely, drop it all around you and leave everything behind for some empty unknown. He won't be there to take you up when you need him, to leave you alone when you want him to, and to let you know he'll be there whenever you need him to be. He'll just be gone. 

After this, he'll leave. 

He doesn't.


	111. Disembodied - IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if this is the final chapter of "Disembodied" or not.
> 
> I like the ending, but I'm torn on whether I want the rehabilitation aspect in here at all.

For the first hours, she's just glad to speak. Even when it's Ann, if the nurse asks a question she isn't relegated to controlling her thoughts and being unable to say a single thing to anyone. Telling her to go away and leave her alone is a refreshing change of pace, even if it scares April that she might go back into that state. After all, she was like that for a few hours and now suddenly nothing? She just waits for her brain to drop out from under her again and everything to become a bleary-eyed, cloudy mess once again.

But it doesn't happen. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the flood of streetlights, Andy kicks up dirt and bits of loose sidewalk on his way back to Burly's place. He knew it was inevitable, but he liked sitting there and talking to April. Now he just feels like he was being a creeper, a crazy old guy who constantly wanted to be around her when she was trying to push him away. It's a miserable feeling, and it's worse than just earlier that day when Andy wanted to wallow in his sadness beer. 

That was before he learned that April was having problems, though. That was before she had a  _stroke_. He still doesn't really know what that is or what it means, for the most part, but she seemed so helpless and tiny when she just sat curled in a ball in that hospital room. It was completely different from any other time he'd seen her. Normally she's who she is, and that's April and never changes, but like that - without that basic function - she seemed so unlike herself. It's weird to be thinking all of this, but it's an excuse to think about April and he's given in to being this creeper at least for a little while. Then he can go back to being ignored and trying to forget her.

He covers the corner to Burly's street in long strides, looking down at the pavement with squinted and fogged eyes. He pushes the door open loudly, forgetting if Burly's even home, and flops down on the couch without grabbing a beer this time. He might not have even closed the door behind him at this rate, and he wants to go to sleep but can't stop staying up thinking what he did wrong. 

Maybe that's the point. Maybe he didn't do anything wrong, but it was wrong  _enough_ that April hated him for it. She didn't seem normal, or at least she seemed weirdly dark and ironic in a really strange way, but he liked that about her. She was cool and funny and never seemed to care what other people thought of her. Something's there, but he can't quite piece it together because he's just spiraling into dumb, sad thoughts he needs to get out. When he picks up a guitar and strums all the songs sound dreary and bland and remind him of April in the way that shitty college kids write songs. That makes him hate all of this even more, because try as he might he can't stop thinking about her.

He's thought about it before, what it'd be like to kiss her. There are other corners of his mind, ones he's less proud to admit ownership of, where he's thought of her before, but the one he goes back to in public is how she'd be the warmest little body when he hugged her. April might have really cold hands, but she wouldn't let go of him and that's all that mattered. And when they kissed she'd have that shy smile he loves so much - just dimples propping up and that prickling at the back of his heart every time she does it - and he'd get to feel her lips shifting against his. He's a romantic sap, sure, but he's so enraptured in this thought that it takes a few more seconds before he realizes someone's knocking at the front door.

They're light, little taps that make him wonder if he's about to open the door to a serial killer.

Instead, or maybe exactly like that, he opens the door to see April standing there. She's holding her elbow and looking away from him and it's maybe the most childish, innocent thing he's ever seen that it makes him feel like shit for thinking of her like this. Especially so when she hates him.

"H-Hey," she says, not looking up. "Sorry for showing up this late, I just... they let me out and-"

"I'm glad," he nods and fingers the edge of the door more, watching her lips move a little into a smile before darting away. "I mean, I'm glad you're out. That was scary."

A few seconds pass with a little howling wind outside. She might think he's an idiot for thinking that. In fact, she definitely does. But he's already said it, so there wasn't any taking it back. This wasn't a video game - he couldn't just load up a save or reset and try everything over again. He was just coming to learn that.

"It really was," she agrees. More silence as she shuffles her feet on the welcome mat just outside the threshold.

"More for you, obviously, but... I mean, you were probably super scared and I'm sorry. I just, I dunno, it was really-"

"Can I come in? It's kind of cold," she rubs her arm and looks over her shoulder. She's just wearing that thin blue t-shirt from earlier in the day and he feels like such a dick for making her stand out in the cold like this.

"Oh, duh, obviously," he steps far to the side and April makes her way inside. 

She stands in front of the door and looks up at him, finally. "I, um, I have rehab stuff for the next few months," she shrugs, "and I'm not sure when it'll be over. It's just to make sure I work through any speech im-imped-impediments or something." 

"Sure," he nods, standing against the wall behind him and suddenly wondering why she's here. "Did you... what's up, then?"

"Why'd you leave earlier?" 

He sighs out loud and slouches back into the wall more. "Because I, uh, I realized how weird I was being," he scratches his beard and chuckles. "I was being  _really_ creepy, wasn't I?"

"How'd you figure that?" she asks him with a curious shift of her eyebrow. 

"I mean, I stayed up telling you stupid stories and pretending like we were doing okay when," he laughs again and looks down. "You hate me, so-"

"Andy, let me tell you a story," April breaks in, still holding onto her arm and shifting up to crossing both of them over her chest. "There was once this girl who really, I mean  _really_ , liked some guy. Other people thought he was an idiot or an asshole, but he always tried to make the girl smile. She didn't really like that he made her feel that way, at first, and she lashed out like a little kid a lot. She didn't get what it was at first, because she thought a lot of people were terrible and the only way to get through life was to be as ironically detached as possible, but he was real and awesome and made her like things for real."

Andy blinks a few times, trying to process her story. It sounded really sweet, but what did it have to do with him? Why was she telling  _him_ a story now? 

"She made a few big mistakes because he made a few small ones," April takes a deep breath and her eyes seem to wander all over his face. She searches him and that makes his shoulders slump a little. "Neither of them were really fair to each other, but the girl seemed to think he was hers despite never making a move. And she just had something terrible happen to her, and she knows things like that happen to people now. Not just other people, but her. And this guy was there without question, and he stays around until she's better. Because he's good like that. So, she wants him to know that she doesn't hate him."

He looks up to her and April's gotten just a bit closer to him. "What?" he asks because he's honestly confused by this whole story, and it sounds eerily familiar.

"I don't hate you," she gets out and releases the tension in her arms to let them fall at her side. "Andy, I don't wanna do th-this anymore. I just... just, I just... fuck it."

He means to say something, to ask her what she meant, but April slinks forward with an almost preternatural haste. Andy doesn't have much time to react before her arms are around his neck and she's pulling him down. Down, down, down until she's kissing him. Her hands go deep in his curls, tightening fingers and pulling a little, and his hands immediately go to her sides where she  _does_ feel so warm. Her lips are warm and she's trembling a little under him.

Then she breaks away and looks up at him, her fingers still moving a little in his hair. Andy matches her stare and there's so much there, and maybe he's taking advantage of her but she's cupping his face soon after and thumbing the skin of his cheek like he's imagined so many times. She looks at his lips again and before he can protest she kisses him again, and again, and this time she somehow moves closer to him. Before long her legs are so important and wrapped around his waist, his arms tight at her sides and then holding her close to him. She kisses him fully, and makes a wanting noise, and before long they're sent tumbling onto the couch. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

He wakes up at an obscene hour with a small blanket draped over him and the other, much smaller and warmer body tight up on him. Her naked back feels so strange against him, but in a fantastic way, and when he touches the indent of her spine with a light feathering of his index she shivers. Turning around, April's tired eyes are bright and warm brown again as she smiles and kisses him. It takes him a solid ten minutes to recover from that kiss, just like the others, and makes him feel like shit for being so indifferent to her all at the same time.

"Y'know, I d-did come over here for a reason," she smirks.

"Oh, so this is just a one time thing?" Andy asks with a small smile and she chuckles. 

"God, shut up," she smacks his chest but burrows closer to him until she has to look up through messy bangs to see him. "I have rehab and basically school I have to go to for a l-little while, and the doctors said I should... should, sh-should have someone to help me."

"Oh, cool," he nods, brushing his nose against hers and makes April smile again. That's honestly so wonderful a feeling he exhales all the energy he can before he's overwhelmed by that feeling of total adoration again. "Who were you thinking of?"

"Really?" she gives him an incredulous look.

"Really what?"

"Dude, I want you to help me," she says with a huff, but never moves away from him. 

"Whoa, really?" he asks, dumbstruck and unable to come up with much else to say. 

"Yeah, really," she bumps into his chest and has that little, shy curl to her lips again. "You're the coolest person I've ever known and if anyone's gonna help me figure out how to l-lose this and spell right, it's you."

"I mean, I'm not smart-"

"That's what you say," she touches his chin, moving her finger up to his cheek where she holds on with her palm. "You say that, but you're smart where it counts, y'know?"

"Not really," he chuckles again, focusing on her hand and her thumb moving now.

"That's okay... just, I want h-help, okay?" she says so small and quiet that it reminds him of her on that cot, all tight up in a ball around herself. 

It makes him tighten his chest and brush his mouth against hers, trying to memorize how that feels. "I'll do everything, then. If we have to stay up for, like, weeks if it means you'll get better then let's do it," he says with a grin before thinking better of it and adding, with a low voice, "let's do it."

April smiles and her legs brush up against his again.


	112. Joyous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested as the lead up to April's vampire/zombie/whatever get up during the finale. Thought we could use some fluff like this after the last few chapters.
> 
> Requesting is neat, I'm backed up at the moment, but you can definitely send more in on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) if you ever think of something!

When that time strikes, April's eyes widen. It's way grosser than she ever thought, and she wonders if Andy's going to slip and fall and it almost sends her on another emotional rollercoaster. Then she remembers that  _she's going into labor_.

"Andy!" she yells before grunting, trying to move herself away from the kitchen counter. 

He flies in and looks around, expecting something. She's not due for another few weeks - and she curses how stupid they were to not plan this birth to this date  _exactly_ \- but she's starting to get really painful surges and they won't stop like they usually do. Painful doesn't even begin to describe the lightning strikes of agony going through her body what seems like every other breath, but her head spins for a second when Andy looks at her with mouth agape.

"Babe, is this-?"

"YES!" she screams. The volume hurts, too, and she's left making a muffled, pained noise afterward. "Babe, get my stuff..."

She tries to remember what Leslie told her - circular breathing, or square breathing... was it square breathing? She can't really remember because her brain is melting with every  _pang_ that escalates to a tumultuous ringing through her body. Andy comes back with two large bags in what seems like way too long a time. 

"Oh God, give me that one," she points to the smaller bag in his other hand but when she takes it she can barely unzip it. "Andy, I need you to do this, okay?"

"Sure!" he says quickly, taking out the brushes and a little enclosed plastic case full of dark reds and grays. 

She planned for this moment, sure, but April made damn sure it was going to happen her way or no way. When she told Andy her only stipulation was that she got to wear creepy makeup and insult the doctor all the way through labor he was more than happy, and even went so far as to suggest a Halloween birth. That didn't necessarily pan out the way they wanted, since the only thing changing in their daily routine was protection so they didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

"Just like we talked about, okay?" she says slowly because breathing is way too hard, and talking just makes it worse. 

"Gotcha," he picked up a thin headed brush and steadies his hand before he makes a gleeful noise and hops up and down. "Oh my God, babe. We're gonna have a kid!"

"No,  _I'm_ gonna have a kid!" she seethes, trying to get him to hurry up. "C'mon, we need to get this done before we get to the hospital."

"Right, right!" he smiles and touches the brush to her cheek before sighing and giggling. "A baby. A kid. Our kid. Your kid. My kid. Kids..."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she looks over at him through purely angry eyes. "Oh my God, Andy you have to get this done-"

"Yeah, I just can't stop thinking about-"

"Kids, yes! But if you don't put this makeup on me I'll strangle you with the umbilical cord," she groans out and Andy only coos softly, like she just said something cute. "I'm not even kidding right now."

Andy's expression hardens and he goes about applying the makeup. It's another seemingly insurmountable span of time until she's ready to deliver, but having that thin mask of pasty white makeup at least makes her feel more comfortable. It was her decision after all, and afterwards she's quite pleased with it, but in that very moment of almost existential agony, April wonders how in the  _hell_ Leslie gave birth to three of these sludge monsters.

There's a whole lot of newfound respect there.


	113. Experiment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested a long while ago (back around chapter 81) as demisexual* Andy and bisexual** April fluff since I wrote them as such in that chapter. Or, at least, I hinted at both of those things and this is more of a bi-curious April than completely identifying as bi. Thought it was fun then, just never got around to it. It's fluffy, but it's also relatively serious enough.
> 
> Lots and lots of talk about sex, how sex affects a relationship, and sexuality, though there is nothing pornish or smutty about this chapter! It is simply a real concept that I think April and Andy would come to talk about at some point.
> 
> * _Demisexuality_ is characterized as feeling a sexual attraction/developing a sexual bond with or to someone **only** after developing a very strong interpersonal bond, whether that be emotional or romantic.
> 
> ** _Bisexuality_ is characterized as feeling a sexual attraction to male and female genders, though it isn't strictly limited to those two genders.

It's something difficult to think about, and it makes April uncomfortable the whole night it first pops into her head. She loves Andy, and loves him without fail, so why was she thinking like this? It wasn't that their sex life dried up - hell, if anything it got crazier by the day. 

The solution and decision isn't permanent. She doesn't want it to be permanent, but April was never shy about exploring herself. That's what she loved so much about Andy, and why she always looked at their sex life as a series of fun adventures. _Very_ fun, and it's not as if she would want this to the point where if she doesn't have it their relationship is ruined. April just thinks that, if he's okay with it, then why not at least try it? The problem was trying to get Andy to think about it. Having sexual fantasies and having an active sex life are two different things, and April got that but she didn't know if Andy would necessarily understand that at all. It's not like she's imagining that she's cheating on Andy, because she just thinks about extra hands and Andy's never missing in her fantasy.

So, she lets it fester for a little bit until they're sitting at a bar and both of them are eyeing people like a creepy as all hell couple. Well, they are. April's scouting out people she wants to have sex with. So, yeah, it might be a little weird. Especially when her husband is there and an active component. However, even when she sees someone she'd like to approach and maybe ask at some point, there's a gross gut feeling that makes her brush them off.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Andy," she says quietly, out of breath.

He looks up, smiling, before going back to her and kissing April hard. "You wanna go again? I'll go d-"

"I wanna talk to you about something," she gets out before she takes up his offer.

"Shoot!" he sits back on his arms and looks so pleased with himself.

"Let me explain first that I love you and you are the best person in the whole universe," she taps his chest. "Also, sex with you is great."

"Nice," he nods along before snapping to look over at her. "Wait, this sounds bad."

"No, it's not!" April immediately protests, kissing him. "Babe, this could be great. I've just been thinking about something, and it's weird but I think it could be cool."

"If you think it'll be cool, then I'm sure it would be," he says with such love in his eyes that she hates thinking about this all over again. 

"You know how we try stuff all the time... and you know how you're pretty open about stuff?" April looks down at her hand tapping his chest and takes a deep breath, waiting for him to answer.

It takes Andy a second and she worries he's overthinking it. Andy  _overthinking_ it, maybe not the greatest expectation. "Sure, because I love you!"

"Ugh, Andy I wanna try something, but you have to be cool with it first," she looks up at him and gives him the best pleading look she can muster. "If you think it's weird or stupid, then it's a no-go."

"Then just say it... babe, I love you and tru-"

"I wanna screw a girl."

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's just that she thinks about having sex with Andy  _and_ someone else. Not separately, but she thinks what it'd be like to have another person with them and when her relationship with him started out as something couched in a lot of anger and jealousy over another woman it's really hard to explain to Andy that what she wants is another woman. 

She takes a drink from the almost sour martini and points, as secretly as she can, at a tall brunette way out of both of their leagues. 

"She could be fun," April suggests.

"Yeah, I guess," he shrugs. "You could go talk to her if you want."

"Andy, you said this was fine," she turns to look at him, because this is important to her. Their relationship is based in trust and love, and she doesn't want him to make light of that ever.

"I mean, it is... I guess," he says with a chuckle, "but it's just weird to me that you want me to go with you for this, y'know?"

"Dude, you're telling me you  _don't_ want to have a threesome with your wife and some other hot chick?" she says almost incredulously, but he's looking down at his beer like he's about to say something really depressing. That's not his job. "Andy, if you're not cool with it, just tell me. I told you it's fine, and I don't need to do this."

"Yeah, but you'd probably be happier if you did do it," he taps his glass and laughs again. "Like, actually do it. With someone that isn't me-"

"Babe, I told you, it's going to be  _us_ and it's going to be  _us_ figuring out what we like," she holds his hand and squeezes, smiling. "It's just like Saturdays, but..."

"But you wanna be with somebody that isn't me," he sighs.

"No! I don't want that at all," she smiles at him. "Andy, don't think like that."

"I dunno how I'm supposed to feel," he says and takes a sip of his drink.

She's happy he doesn't let go of her hand though. That feels like he at least partially gets that she's not doing this to create a problem. "And Andy, I'm not gonna be unhappy if we walk away right now," she explains. "Hell, I've felt sick thinking about this since we talked about it."

"Yeah?"

"Dude, I almost threw up this morning. It feels like I want to cheat on you," she tells him with no amount of laughter in her voice. "But it's  _not_. I just sometimes think about it, and think about how I might have always wanted to do something like this, y'know?"

"Not really," Andy says matter-of-factly. "But, this isn't... I dunno, I always thought us having sex was cool and important because we were doing it."

"And it is, and I don't want it to ever be anything but that," April kisses him, trying to show him. "That's why I'm totally cool with not doing this, either now or ever."

Andy's eyes widen. "Does this mean you think about chicks when we do it?" and his face turns all dumb and grinning. April slaps his shoulder. "Ow!"

"No, babe. That's why I want to do it with you  _and_ some hot lady," April looks back over the bar. 

"But... this is weird," Andy taps the glass again and turns to look at her. "I wanna tell you something then. I mean, it's weird... but, um, is it weird that I don't think about anyone else either?"

April smiles wide and kisses him again. "No, it's really sweet," April says, "and I don't blame you. We're super hot together."

"True."

"I don't either, Andy. I wanna make that super clear: you are my husband," she holds his face as she speaks. "You, Andy Dwyer, if you want it to be that way, are the only person who gets to have sex with me by default. You are the only big dumb puppydog I want in my life, but if you want to try something with me... I'm all ears."

Andy looks at her and still looks like he's struggling with something. April's okay with that, since she's not looking at anyone else in the bar and thinking about just taking Andy home and proving to him that she wants him above all else. This was just an idea. It was just another Saturday exploration of things they were interested in but not necessarily craving. It's what makes their sex life special, and important to her. There's trust between the two of them, and always love, so when she says that she would be fine not thinking about this again, then if it made Andy happy she'd be okay with it.

She doesn't want to close a door, only open a window a bit.

"I just... it's weird to me because I literally  _can't_ think of anyone but you," he looks down at their hands. "I mean, if I could... I'd wanna do this for you, April, but I can't think about anyone else like that. Like, I can't even do anything when I think about someone else."

"You've thought about other people-?"

"No!" he interrupts immediately, looking frightened. "Only when you brought it up. It wasn't something I thought about until then, I swear. Really honey, I swear-"

"Okay, babe, I believe you," she smiles and kisses him one more time. Just to get the point across. 

"It's just... I dunno, you're super hot and awesome and the best wife ever," he looks almost frustrated and squinting a lot, holding her hand all the while. "But I can't even, like, think about other people. And then I think about you and I'm... it's just, y'know, one-hundred percent on. Like  _on_ -"

"I get you, weirdo," she laughs. "Really? So you don't, like, think about Ann or...?"

"No. And I can't... I really, super can't even think about anyone but you when we do it," he answers in a small voice. "Do you... y'know, think about Ann?"

"Ew, no," April grimaces and looks around the bar again. People are starting to mill out and some stragglers, clearly too drunk to move or calling a cab, stay behind. April smiles at him. "You wanna head home?"

"But you didn't find anyone-?"

"I don't need anyone," she says with a wandering eye over Andy. It's incredible how lucky she is, April thinks. He definitely scored, too. "Just my awesome husband."

"You're the best wife," he grins and they stand up and pay the tab. Andy looks at her and gives April his trademark effusive grin. "I mean it though... you are so hot."

"Shut up," she smacks his arm and he walks them out of the bar, holding her hand still.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She meant it when she said that it didn't matter to her if they ever did this. After that night, when she's pleasantly tired the next day and he's so sweaty that she can only be proud of herself, April tries to imagine what it could have been like. But, really, she realizes - above all else - that she wanted Andy to be okay with her thinking like this. She felt wrong and like she was doing something wrong simply thinking about it, and Andy being supportive as only Andy could made her realize that he  _is_ the best. It's important that they talked about this, and that they came to a decision. If the window was shut, that at least took the weight off of April's shoulders for thinking she was cheating on him simply by thinking about sleeping with a woman  _and_ him.

And she tries to understand how he thinks. 

April feels special when she does that. If, out of everyone in the world that he could have, Andy loved her and that meant  _only_ her, it makes her feel important and wanted. In the grand scheme of things it wasn't that important, but to her being wanted so often and so singularly meant everything to her. In a world built by choices, she was his first choice and April won't lie that it makes her giddy with love. It meant the world to her that Andy only had eyes for her, even if it meant being physically incapable of doing otherwise. She was the special one, even if he always said that he didn't deserve her. 

So, she's going to think about it but she won't dwell on it. If Andy ever feels comfortable with it, like she said, April will take that opportunity openly. Until then, if that time ever comes, she'll enjoy her husband and everything that means.


	114. Those Baby Blues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested as "April suffers postpartum depression/disconnect after Jack's birth." Before that it was requested when Roberta was the headcanon first baby, so it's only slightly different from the original prompt.
> 
> I will say that it's not all gloom and doom, but still :(

Everyone gets the baby blues, or a lot of women do. April knows that. Those first few days, she chalked it up to that. Out of all the things she ever wanted to be, when she had Jack she wanted to be there for her kid. It wasn't that her parents were negligent - if she could tell herself something in her teens it would be to lighten up and realize her mom was trying - but April doesn't remember a time when her parents really  _cared_ about what she did. They let her do what she wanted to, but none of it felt like it came from a place of love. Instead it felt like they were trying to get her out of their hair. 

All parents do that, and she knows even  _Leslie freaking Knope_ can do that at times. April doesn't want to be that kind of mother though. She wants to be someone her son can go to and talk to, and not feel like she doesn't "get him." 

She wants to do everything she can from the start. April wants to breastfeed and be there whenever she can, and though Andy will naturally spend more time with him she wants to be a great mother.

But she can't.

Those first few days. That's all she kept telling herself, was that this was just natural. It was okay to have trouble sleeping and wake up from night terrors in coughing fits. This is normal, she tells herself. She smiles at Andy and when he isn't looking she asks herself if this is really normal. But she has to go to work, where she can actually help people. That thought, above all else, makes her feel like shit. Physically, she can feed Jack. But when she tries to, something about it feels strange and foreign and April  _loathes_ that more than anything. Even that simple, natural and human act is out of her sphere of understanding. It makes April hand him over to Andy and go to the bathroom, wanting to hide the tears from him.

Then those days become  _more_. She wakes up at three in the morning after going to sleep past midnight every single day. Her bones ache when she opens the fridge, but she can't help it. April wants to deal with it - and be a strong person, she tells herself, and a strong, capable mother - but her fingers ache when they open cupboards. Even then, she can't do much more than drink a glass of water and sit up, doing absolutely nothing but thinking.

April told herself she can do this. 

What if she can't?

She tries not to read about her symptoms, because she already knows what it is. She knows, logically, but emotionally she isn't prepared for it. She doesn't want to have a name for seeing her child and not  _feeling_ anything. For everything else, she wants to beat it into her. She tells herself she loves Jack, and she tells others that, but... it's not there. It's not met by anything other than hatred inside of her, and not at him. He's a defenseless child, a beautiful baby boy. He deserves none of this, and neither does Andy, so all that's left is hating herself. How shitty of a mother do you have to be to not  _love your own fucking child_?

She's stuck with this question for nights on end. She knows it's not baby blues anymore. That time's long past, and she knows it's not just being tired from the aftermath of birth. April knows it by definition because she always asked the doctors when Andy wasn't around what she should do if this happened. She knew exactly what this was, but didn't want to think about it. 

Then Jack cries out and she tries to go help him. When she picks him up and pats his back, whispering that everything's okay and mommy's here, he won't stop. He keeps crying and she tries to feed him, but that doesn't work either. He doesn't need cleaned or anything, he just won't respond to her.  _I'm fucking broken,_ she thinks.  _Can't even take care of my own kid._

When Andy comes in after an hour of the baby crying, she's sitting on the chair next to the crib with her face in her hands and tears seeping through her fingers. She just wants to be a good mother, and she can't even get that right.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She tries. Day after day, she tries. He's no longer used to breastfeeding and she hates that she'll never get to be the proper caregiver she wants to be. April knows she doesn't  _have_ to be that, but where does it end? When will it be something more than that? Simple, little things like those that April should be capable of handling are impossible to deal with, and irreversible. She can't go back and have a do over, so she sulks at work and goes home to Andy, who by the day looks more and more worried, and tells him she's okay. She knows that he doesn't believe her, but she keeps telling herself he doesn't see it. She doesn't want him to see it. In their lives, she might not be as chipper or determinately, constantly happy as him, but she doesn't want him to think that she doesn't love her child.  _  
_

It goes on like that for weeks until April wakes up one day to find Andy holding Jack in the living room, sitting on the couch, and his face looks so broken she doesn't know what to do. He just stares down at their son, their perfect little boy, and she hates what he looks like. Andy should be proud, and happy, and instead she's making him hate it. 

"Morning," she says, looking at the two of them. 

He doesn't respond at first, just looking at the bundle in his arms. Andy has so much love to give, an astronomical amount in comparison to what April can handle, and he should be giving it wholesale over to their child. But with his wife unsure what she's dealing with, and unsure that she can give the same love to her son, he's left looking almost heartbroken. When they were talking about children, she took some time to get used to the idea and April never thought of that as being forced into anything. Who in the hell was going to force her into having children anyways? But, Andy didn't push it to the point where she felt pressured into it.

It's what made her decide to do it. He gave her space, months, to think about it and though they talked about it in those months, April never once felt anything but Andy's expansive love in those conversations. He truly wanted kids, and he wanted them with  _her_. Not once was it ever a factor that he'd leave her to have children. It was always about the kids themselves, and about April being okay with it. 

And she was, she truthfully was. She did love the first time he saw Jack, because Andy's face was pouring over with emotion that she was giddy to feel illuminating the room. When she held him the first time, too, she felt that. She felt like he was a new bit of joy she could experience, and help shape, and bring something great into the world. Her thoughts never swayed from wondering if she was capable as a mother, but she thought she could do it at first. She  _thought_.

"Hey," he gets out eventually, his voice rattling and dehydrated.

"You... you got him?" she asks, trying to tear herself from looking at them.

Andy looks up and he smiles weakly. Weak and low, sad, and all the things Andy  _isn't_. "Yeah," he answers, nodding before going back to looking at Jack.

"Is he hungry?" she asks like she can do anything about it.

"Nah," Andy says without looking up at her.

There's a long, dark silence where April stands fidgeting with her hands. If she could get herself to stop thinking like this she would, for the love of everything she would want this to end so that Andy could be happy and she could be the mother she wanted to be, but it's not that easy. And it hurts. It hurts like seeing her husband shrug her off. It hurts like her son crying all the time around her and not having a way to fix it. She started out wanting to be the perfect example of what someone that is impossibly in love with her husband can do to love her children... and now she's already failed. She's already broken and totally incapable of handling it, and it fucking hurts.

Not only Andy, though. He certainly doesn't deserve it. All the way up through the pregnancy he reminded her that she's in charge and that it's her body, and a bunch of other stuff from his single semester of Women's Studies, and it's everything she already knows. But she wants it by then. And it's not only him, but Jack. He's her  _son_ \- and the amount of times she has to remind herself that he is her child is terrifying - and she should love him, and love everything about him, but she can't and it hurts. 

"You wanna... um, you're," Andy starts, cradling Jack in his arms and making April want to close her eyes and forget that she's thinking like this just for one moment. What she wouldn't give to see Andy holding Jack and feel an explosion of heat and love in her chest. "Are you okay, honey?"

April sits down on the chair across from the couch. "I... I-I'm..." she takes a long breath and she tries her best to answer him truthfully. She wants him to know what it's like to have April love what they've done. "I'm fine."

"No you're not," Andy says so matter-of-factly it's just another in a long list of horrible disappointments in her life. 

Disappointing daughter, disappointing intern, disappointing wife. Disappointing friend, disappointing employee, and now a disappointing mother.

"What?"

"Babe, you're not... do you need to talk to me about something?" his voice is soft and she wants to cry again, just from the pure and natural  _Andy_ there is in that voice. "You can always tell me stuff, you know that-"

"I said I'm fine," she reminds him, but April's already curled up on the chair without thinking about the motions.

"Do you..." he looks down at Jack and gives the sleeping boy another sad look. "Did you wanna look at stuff?"

"Like what?" she asks him, scared.

"You know... we talked about it, babe," Andy's voice is falling apart but he's trying so hard to look composed. April finds that loathing in her chest and wants to burn it out of her body, just excise it once and for all. "We talked about it when you were pregnant."

"Andy, we can't do that now. He's already born," she says slowly.

"I meant... like, y'know, adoption," Andy says and his voice completely breaks when he says the word. He looks down and kisses Jack's forehead, and she can see he's already gone. 

Andy was never an attractive crier, but he's holding together a little bit.

"No," she immediately defends. "You love Jack."

"But you don't," Andy chokes out, and his eyes get redder and wetter by the second. "Babe, I know you hate that you did this and you regret it..."

"I don't," she replies in a weak voice, barely able to say it.

"It's okay, I shoulda known," he stands up and walks to the nursery. He returns a little while later, April unable to follow him and hear what he's saying to Jack. "I should've known you were just doing this for me-"

"I didn't!" she says a little louder than she intended. "Babe, no, I don't want to give up  _our_ son."

"But I want him to be happy, and I want you to be happy... and you're not," he takes her hands and it's the most intimate contact they've had in a week. "Babe, you're not."

"I didn't ask for this, Andy. I don't want to feel like this-"

"So we'll talk about it in the morning and figure out how we get this started-"

"Why are you being like this?" she whispers, crying. She can tell she's got tears in her eyes because she can barely make him out through them. His voice is breaking and shaking, and all kinds of things she hates to hear. "Andy, I told you already: I don't  _want_ this, and I mean I want Jack. I want to love him, I do."

"It's making you miserable. I don't want you like that, and if it means we have to... if we can't have our son, then I want him to be with people that will love him," Andy sounds hollow and the words he's speaking don't have any weight to them.

"Andy, we're not doing that," she answers and moves forward, hugging him tightly. He returns it immediately and she has to dig her face into his chest because looking at him like this hurts, too. "I don't wanna give up. I just... I don't know what to do."

"We can go talk to someone," he says softly into her hair. He kisses the top of her head and her chest vibrates with a kind of love that's indescribable, something that she doesn't understand and never will but it's directly aimed at Andy. "We'll go talk to a doctor and a head doctor and we'll... we can do this."

"It's called a therapist, and yeah... yeah we can," she nods into his chest and leans up to kiss him. "I can do this."

When they break apart he smiles ever so faintly, just enough that it makes her feel a little better. "You can do this, honey," he amends. "I believe in you."

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first doctor explains that this is all normal. April hates that, and hates hearing that she shouldn't be too worried. That's all a fucking lie and she tells him as much. They visit another doctor who says she can help April get into a therapy program and possibly see if medication helps her. That makes April feel much better and she even kind of wants to hug this doctor. Maybe it's because she's a mother, April finds out, but she doesn't dare ask her if she understands personally. Andy doesn't look happy, but he's always by her side and he always asks her if she's okay talking to another person about this.

If she's going to be a good mother, she's going to fight this. That makes Andy smile, and it makes her feel better because he truthfully believes she can do this. 

"So, Ms. Ludgate, you're in the door at the end of the hall. To the left, Dr. Michaels," the nurse smiles at her and April nods. She takes Andy's hand and leads him to her appointment.

This is the only one she gets to have Andy with her for. If it's successful, or at least if the therapist thinks it's successful, they'll turn into solo affairs. It scares April, but she's strong. She reminds herself that she wants to be as strong a mother as Andy was a father and husband. She realizes, then in that short walk, he's all of that. In a time when she couldn't handle it, and things were terrifying, Andy didn't leave her. He didn't think the burden too great, and abandon his son, because he  _was_ and  _is_ strong enough.

She smiles at him and squeezes his hand. He's going to be an amazing father.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's not an outright success, but she schedules another appointment. Then another, after the second. She has a prescription for something that comes in a little tinted bottle, and April remembers to take them every 24-hours as instructed. 

Things they talked about, her and the therapist, she tries to work on them. April spends an hour with Jack, and tries to create memories in that short time, before she hands him off to Andy and lets herself go do something else. Whether that be studying a client's portfolio or talking to Leslie, or emailing her therapist, she does it. Then, late at night, she visits with Jack again. It feels so regimented and unnatural - not like a real mother should feel - but April does it because it's all she can do. 

"How's he doing?" Leslie asks her.

"He's fine, and he's starting to warm up to me again," April tries not to choke up saying that, over the phone, because it hurts to say but it makes her so happy. "God, I sound like an idiot-"

"Not at all! How's he eating?"

April smiles and wipes the bridge of her nose, taking a tissue and sneezing because God, she's hormonal and emotional and it's annoying but refreshing. "He's eating just fine, just not... he only does formula right now." 

"Take your time, and don't believe for a second it makes you a bad mom if you stick to formula," Leslie says through the crackling filter. "It's perfectly-"

"Leslie, ugh, I've had this talk with like, twelve doctors," she laughs and sniffs. "I just really want to."

She can't see it, but April knows Leslie's smiling. "Okay."

Eventually, after two weeks, she can feed Jack again. The first time she does it, and he latches on and he ends up smiling at her in the blind, dumb way only a newborn can, April cries. Whether it's the overload of emotions or the medication making her loopy and hormonal, she can't help it. And it feels so good to hold him, and cry, and with her shirt unbuttoned she holds him closer to her and kisses his cheek. He laughs a little thing, a squeak, and she can't help herself before she's making the strangest, weakest sounds of laughter with him.

A weight appears behind her and Andy kisses the back of her head. She looks down at Jack and, for the first time since giving birth, she loves him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The single greatest thing about her life is her friends. And, one of them, she can always talk to whenever she needs her. If Andy was the rock she needed right then, Leslie was the faint, distant lighthouse that she could follow into the confusing and treacherous waters April found herself in. 

"How are things going? With... with Jack," Leslie asks her, setting her coffee cup on the table. 

"Amazing," April says slowly. "I have another session this Friday, and then I think they're going to lessen my prescription."

"Oh my God, that's so good to hear," Leslie hugs her and it's something she honestly needed. "Do you wanna talk about it? How's the feeding, is he getting all cute and chubby? God, Sonia had the biggest baby cheeks and they were so cute..."

April smiles as Leslie continues. This is the kind of mother she wants to be. Leslie doesn't need what April does, but as time and professional help have taught her that's okay, and she can nod and ask Leslie about how she handled feeding and the sensitivity. She should have known that Leslie was the exact kind of mother that could handle three kids, and that she could feed them naturally, and Leslie could be all of that without help. But, April's strong and brave in her own way because she's fighting this. She can look at Jack and smile, and feel that real love in her, and though it might have taken time, she's there.

"It makes you really sensitive, I know, but it just... I think there's something in it about the hormones, but then you look at them," she sighs, "or him, like you, and you think 'holy crap, I've brought this into the world and he's... I'm his mother.' It feels right, y'know?"

"Yeah, actually," April smiles and chuckles. "I actually do know what you mean now."

"You're a great mother April," Leslie reassures her, touching her arm. "Now, did you want a brownie or were you just going to stare at the table all day?"

April gives her that old, shy smile that she thought she'd given up years ago, but it's okay to have right now. She reaches down and takes two of the warm desserts, quickly devouring one and protesting when Leslie tries to take the other one. 

This is her role model. In work, in life, and in other ways. Maybe Leslie wasn't the  _exact_ person she wanted to be - after all, she's married to Ben and ugh, gross - but she made April want to be better at times like these. Even though she's strong enough, now, and can only get better in taking care of her family, April likes knowing that she has someone she can rely on that isn't Andy. Other people are necessary, and Leslie helps her find that time in her day to talk about Jack in a way that makes her realize she's hopelessly lost in love for her son. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's a sunny, dry heat in Washington for once. The humidity calms down for one afternoon, and sometimes when the wind blows it actually feels comfortable. The sun beats down on the pavement, but no one's walking in their bare feet anyways, and on top of that there's always a cool drink or one of those breezes to look forward to. People walk down the streets lined with stores and cafes, and April eyes them all from the table at one of those little diners with outdoor seating. Normally, she'd prefer the cool air inside but the seats are open at eleven o'clock and she'd rather see the sun and feel the wind on her skin than bland air full of people's voices and their old breaths. 

Through the mist of laughter and people talking, the busy traffic loud, she turns and looks in the stroller. Jack sleeps through all of it, used to Andy's loud voice and the volume of a city, and she smiles. She takes his hand and he naturally wraps around her finger while April busies herself with finishing her sandwich. The door to the diner opens and Andy comes out in a hurry with one very large milkshake in his hand and two straws in the other.

She looks down again at Jack and he's awake, but only blearily blinking and not screaming. A vast, unknown depth of heat passes through her when he looks around, confused and with her finger still firmly in his hand, and sees her.

He laughs out loud, a squealing sort of thing, and she smiles at her son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Postpartum depression is a very serious thing. Just like depression or any other mental illness, it does not mean you are broken. Don't take my word for it or my fanfiction as something to take note of if you come across someone who has suffered/dealt with it. 
> 
> Sometimes, you don't fix it. Sometimes it's impossible to. Sometimes that means you have a child you don't understand or truthfully love, no matter what you say. I didn't want this fic to end like that, because I think April does have a wide and caring enough support group to help her and she definitely has the means (though that isn't always enough) to solve the problem through treatment.


	115. Zombies, Anesthetics, and Pudding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously as an extension of "Campaign Ad" where April and Andy take care of each other after Andy runs into an ambulance and April (at least I assumed) has her wisdom teeth taken out. Especially needed after yesterday, I think.
> 
> Honestly I don't care if she had them removed, because I started writing this and enjoyed the hell out of it.

Andy tapped the plaster on his face one more time, just to make sure it was firmly stuck there, and grunted in pain. April looked over at him and her already huge eyes widened in disbelief. As it turned out, whatever medication or relaxant she was given for her mouth was having some interesting effects on her. 

"Mmwafe that phound again," she slurred, the cotton in her mouth restricting what she could really say. She chuckled after that, her eyes crossing momentarily. 

"Babe, are you okay?" Andy asked, helping her open the passenger side door and watching her slink inside.

April laughed and sat down on her hands. Letting them sit there she propped herself up with her hands underneath her legs and bounced once. Looking at Andy like she'd discovered the coolest thing in the world, she did it again. She bounced up and down and laughed again, this time a much louder one with as big a grin on as she could muster. She looked back at Andy with that grin and tilted her head.

Andy was starting to get scared.

"You're tho thexy," she murmured before dropping her head back on the seat.

No more bouncing or grinning, she just sat back like that and stared up at the roof of the car. Andy got in and started the engine, and thankfully that didn't startle or confuse April. She seemed more focused on looking at her hands and laughing. 

By the time they got home she was still busying herself with her knuckles, but at times she'd asked him if they were going home and when he answered the affirmative she just sighed and asked why they weren't going to Disneyland. According to her, she hated school. She wanted to be a princess, and Andy could only tell her that she was and make April confused and sit there silent for a few minutes.

When they drove up to the house she turned to him. "Am I a phr... a phrintheth?" she asked him.

"April you're being super weird," he said slowly.

"Tho I'm not a phrintheth?" 

Andy stared in disbelief as her eyes looked down and she almost had  _tears_ in them. Her shoulders slumped and he just made a confused, hanging noise. Then he remembered what the doctors said to him. Maybe it was the mild concussion that knocked his thoughts around, but it was hard trying to gather his memories up. She was going to be loopy and out of it for a little while.

"Babe, you're like Cinderella but way creepier," he grabbed her hand and got to his knee. Holding it in the air he waited for her to turn and April did, with a huge smile on her face. "And way hotter."

"Tho thweet," she took one foot and gingerly placed it on the driveway pavement before stumbling all the way out of the car and into Andy's arms. 

He wanted to laugh but she just looked up at him with that wistful, dazed happiness. If she wasn't completely out of it he'd have kissed her, and not to mention she had big clumps of reddening cotton in her mouth. Something about kissing someone who couldn't say yes or no to it made Andy really uncomfortable, so he stood up with her in his arms.

"My printh Tharming," she said and started laughing again. It didn't abate, more giggling than anything, when he picked her up and carried her with one arm under her knees and the other holding her back aloft. 

When they got inside the house, after April cheered him on as he kicked the front door open (they never locked it anyways) he set her down and she shouted, "Woo!" as she landed on her back, softly, and started laughing again. 

Somehow he was supposed to figure out how to get different cotton and bandages in her mouth. Sitting down in front of her with the box of cotton and a gauze pad pre-cut by the dentist, he was trying to figure this out. Andy wasn't so good at this kind of thing and if he screwed up he might hurt her. Or he might not. He really didn't know what would happen. Would she bleed really badly? Would it hurt her? 

He was thinking all of this while April stuck her arms out straight above her. "I'm a ssst...ss-zombie," she gurgled and made a low moaning noise as she sat up straight. "Andy, you married a sshombie."

She looked at him with her back twisted and her arms raised out, fingers twiddling in front of him as if she was going to grab at him. She made that same moaning noise and grabbed his neck, not really squeezing and sat there laughing. Andy coughed out just to clear his throat but when he did so April drew her arms back with a clear horror on her face. 

"Oh my God!" she looked at her hands and dropped on her back again. "I didn't h-hurth you, did I? I'm not really a sshombie, Andy! I thwear."

"Babe, open your mouth," he said because Andy's so confused and she's kind of calm right now.

She did and he gently put a finger in her mouth to move aside the pad. She laughed when he touched the side of her cheek with his big dumb hands and pulled up slowly on the pad. No blood or stitches came up with it, so he quickly put another pad and small chunk of cotton on afterwards.

He did the same to the other side of her mouth and April giggled at the exact same sensation.

April. Giggling. What a weird world. Andy laughed too because he expected her to bite his finger off and instead she laughed like she didn’t care at all that he could hear it. When he was done she quickly drooped her eyes and before long she was snoring, very loudly, on the couch. He smiled to himself and wondered how he was so freaking lucky. Then, he set out to find a box of macaroni and cheese to make. When he found the little blue box he remembered that she had to eat, like, pudding and stuff. Soft food was all she could do for a while. 

When he opened the fridge he realized that there weren't any Snack Packs left, though.

He hoped she wouldn't wake up wondering where he went, Andy opening the door to go drive to the store. When he returned, with a grocery bag full of pudding of all kinds, she was still snoring as loudly and with that same open mouth and the same bit of drool eking out.


	116. Flowers and Fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Oakmaster on ffnet as "Andy proving to April that he's all about her in the early part of their relationship."
> 
> More goofy fluffy stuff!

She overheard what Andy said to the crew. All of that stuff he said about scarves and treasure chests and lube made April smirk to herself. Except the lube part. That made her eyes widen and her face fluster with heat.

Afterward he found her at the Parks Department, and he had a small package in his hands. She sighed when put the sunflowers down on her desk, but couldn't help it when she was grinning.

"For you," he gestured broadly at the small bundle of flowers. "The awesome, pretty April Ludgate."

"Oh my God, stop," April stood up and walked over, kissing him on the spot. Who the fuck cares? April likes being told she's pretty. 

Who doesn't?

"You are though," Andy said after they broke away and his eyes were so bright, almost brilliant, and just the best to stare into. "Super awesome-"

"Andy," she was smiling so much that her face almost  _hurt_.

"And super beautiful."

"Aww," and Leslie's staring at them with her hands over her chest. 

"Leslie, please don't spy on us," April whined and pushed Andy on his chest backward into the hallway.

Out where she could kiss him more.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Over the course of five days, there are gifts. Andy gave her chocolate - actually kind of expensive chocolates that he must have stolen, which makes it so much more romantic - and she loved them. They're kind of gross, and have all kinds of weird fruity centers, but he meant well.

Andy gave her a new jacket. It's way too big and it has a dumb, fuzzy collar - and she's pretty sure this came from a flea market - but she loved it. The way he asked her if she did and she hugged him tightly around the waist is totally the best. Andy's the best.

He's the best, she realized.

"Why are you giving me all this stuff?" April asked, staring at the now-daily bundle of sunflowers she's given. "I told you-"

"I know, you just wanna hang out," he sat at the central table while April picked at the petals and smiled absentmindedly. "I just... dunno, I like doing it."

"You don't have to-"

"I know, I know, but I just; y'know, I wanna prove it," he stood up and puffed his chest out dramatically.

Somehow that's kind of sexy. 

"What?" she asked, incredulous and putting the yellow plants up at the front of her desk.

"That I will only kiss you," he said in a serious voice, all rumbly in his chest that made April's eyes widen, staring, and her chest hurt with... something. "Until you don't want me to, but until then... I want to prove that you are the only person that matters to me."

April gave him a shy smile and glanced up, avoiding eye contact. She bobbed her head and laughed, trying to figure out how to respond to that. Sure, maybe some of it is weird. Maybe Andy is some kind of sexist pig or blah, blah, blah. 

Right now? It's sweet, and amazing, and awesome to know that he's thinking like that. He's taking her thoughts and her wishes into consideration and that's maybe the most damn  _awesome_ thing about him. She wanted to figure out a way to say it but her voice is all weak and refused to get out. Gross. 

Instead she stood up, held his hand, and leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss him. 

"Awesome," he said, smiling.

"Yeah," she returned with a bright red flush in her face.

 


	117. Cool Waters and Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Requested as "the first time April cries in front of Andy."
> 
> Let's pretend she didn't cry at Natalie's speech in 3x09 for this to make sense for the prompt. I wanted a happy cry, dammit!

It’s so dumb and them, but April can’t help herself. She’s married to this tall goofball now, and she really likes how that sounds. Her _husband_. Andy Dwyer – married to April Ludgate; her. He’s married to her now. He’s her freaking husband. And, really, she can’t help herself when – obviously, after everyone’s left because there’s no way in hell anyone other than Andy will know she has this kind of emotion – she cries.

It’s stupid. She knows it, and he should know it, but she’s so damn _happy_ that it’s hard to hold them in. Andy clears away some of his instruments when he sees her sitting there, in front of the little space where they were standing just moments ago – repeating vows to each other and promising so many things. Things she wasn’t sure she could promise, but for Andy she’d try.

He walks over and notices her wiping at her face with the knuckle of her thumb, staring down at the carpet and chuckling.

“Babe…” he stands there, almost like he’s in shock and has no idea what to do.

“What?” she looks up and asks him, because damn everything there’s some streaming down her face and it’s all heat and tears and she’s so fucking _happy_.

“Are you okay?” he asks her, real worry all over his face.

“Yeah.”

“But you’re… um, you’re, y’know, uh…” he makes lines down his face with his fingers and she laughs. “You’re um, yeah.”

“I know, Andy,” she stands up and sniffs loudly, and tries to memorize what it feels like to look at him right then.

He’s her husband, and she’s never been happier to do anything in her life. Yeah, it was just a dumb title and a tax thing, really, but it symbolizes something she loves about him. He’s loyal. Though she had her doubts, and worries, Andy was the symbol of loyalty in love for her life, and she further wanted to prove to _him_ – no matter what he said, she still had to – that she was his. Nothing gross, just that their love meant something and they wanted it to mean something to more than just them.

So she tries to capture that feeling.

It’s a lot like the first day of summer when the waters of a lake warm up. You love that lake, and you love the cool and relaxing juxtaposition against your skin and the heat of the sun still beating down on you. It’s like being caught up in that moment when you know that everything right then and there is going to be comfortable, and fun, and different. Andy was that, and she wanted to extend that first day into a second and ten more, and thousands more until they were old and gray and gross together.

April wants to capture that, how it feels to kiss him on that first summer day when the lake is cold but warm enough to dip into. He’s loving, and he’s comfort, and he’s fun. April never thought she’d want this, but he’s different – he makes her want to be all those things, and to change because it makes her better, and to be the same person but different. Still April, but better, and Andy makes her want to be like that because she wants him to be like that and realize his potential.

April wants to capture that feeling, hold onto it, and never let go.

“So, what’s wrong?” he asks her, walking forward. “Are you okay? Do you need, like…  I can go get you stuff, if it’s y’know-“

“Gross,” she slaps his arm and Andy laughs.

“Are you… um, is it about us?”

“Yes,” she answers without thinking.

“Oh,” he looks down, happiness drained from his eyes.

April wipes at her face once more and slaps his arm again. “No, you dork,” she laughs. “This isn’t a sad cry.”

“Oh,” he looks back up, everything she loves about him still there. “Really?”

“Totally,” she chuckles and walks forward, putting her arms around his waist. “This is… I’m happy.”

“Awesome,” he mumbles, kissing the top of her head.

“I am, y’know? I’m really… happy,” she sighs, and it’s the first one in years that isn’t ironic or annoyed. It’s a sigh of contentment. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” he responds, leaning down to kiss her again.

April wants to know what this feeling is like ten, twenty years from now. Fifty, even. She wants to know if it’s still cool waters and sunshine, and knowing Andy and her it will always be that: cool waters, sunshine, and love.


	118. New, Yet the Same

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another bit on "Her." 
> 
> Let's consider the last part (Safety in Me) non-canon within this already non-canon AU. I don't like the idea of a trans person's life having to be defined by tragedy, even if it's fictional. It's not a good moral to tell, though I can't say that tragedy isn't in everyone's life - it just doesn't need to be the only thing I write about in this one.
> 
> So, this is connected to the SRS/GCS (Sex Reassignment Surgery/Gender Confirmation Surgery) plot in "The Things We Say." I'm not going to shy away from a few technical aspects or from the reality of the thing, so I mean... if the word vagina makes you uncomfortable you'll stop reading now or grow up.
> 
> This is just one method of transition. This doesn't define everyone's and shouldn't define anything, really. This is just stuff that I know of, and is in no way intended to be the "right" or "only" description of transitioning.

A few hours go by in that waiting room. He leaves to get food and feels like shit for it, feeling like he's abandoning her, but the nurse at the front desk tells him it's okay and these take a while. She even tells him that if she's done early - he knows that's not really a thing, but it's nice to hear - that they'll let her know he's only getting a sandwich a few blocks away. Still, it feels terrible to leave her alone like that.

The thing that amazed Andy about her is that she'd been going to do these things for  _years_. The immense bravery it must have taken to walk in here shocks him and makes him so proud to know April. She's had surgeries  _alone_ even, when her father refused to go and her mother didn't want to be seen with her. It puts a new light on April, and makes Andy inspect his feelings further. It's a really weird thing to do, but knowing that she's gone to have things about her body, her hormones, her face even, changed because she wants something different changes how he looks at her. She went from this amazing woman he's falling for to this amazing, brave, indomitable woman and he can easily say he's in love.

A few hours, and the lack of that tapping foot of hers and her shaky hand in his makes Andy replace them himself. He  _taps_ and shakes, and waits. Then, he can see her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"You'll be admitted for six to eight days, barring any further complications," the doctor tells her and April just nods along.

This is where she wants to be -  _who_ she wants to be - and this is just the final step. She could have lived fine as a woman before this surgery, but April had to consider if she wanted to. She can't explain it to Andy, at least the really gross nitty-gritty, but she does tell him that it's something she thinks about and his only response, because of course it is, is that she should do whatever makes her happy. Leslie, likewise, supports her completely even if she can't be there for the day prepping for the surgery or now - when she's actually out of it. 

She notices how weirdly  _uncomfortable_ she feels, but the physical sensations change. She knows that. The doctors told her that, and she knows to be patient. 

"After that, we can send you on your way save for routine check-ups here," he adds and stays lecturing her at bedside. "You'll have to continue using the prosthesis, but after the bedrest we'll give you instructions on how to take care of yourself afterwards."

"Thanks," April says quietly, because she trusts this doctor. She's trusted him since her first facial surgery.

"And April, if you need... it's likely a terrible idea on my part, but if you need any help," he smiles and the wrinkles of his face show plainly. "We know places, and we know homes and families."

April looks over to see Andy waving at her from the windowed door. "I think I'm fine," she says.

 

 

* * *

 

 

For eight weeks, after her bedrest, April has to figure out what the hell her timeline looks like. There's figures and diagrams and instructions and more diagrams about her prosthesis and... and all she knows is she has a vagina. 

So, April figures it out. She has to leave the prosthesis in for  _eight_ weeks with decreasing times, and she's just unsure about these times but every time she goes to check-up they say she's doing fine. Things are healthy and normal, and it feels so right to be normal that she has regular breakdowns. Andy's never far away and she's happy that he's there, but it's so weird being this medical and technical with something that other people don't have to worry about this over.

"But you're not other people," Andy told her when she voiced that. "You're April, and you gotta... whatever you gotta do to be April is what you do. We'll figure it out, but yeah-"

He didn't get much more out because April kissed him on the spot.

But she does figure it out and makes sense of timetables and diagrams and gross check-ups that make her feel all exposed and weird. But if the goal at the end of this is attainable - "proper" sensation and physically feeling like a whole person that she's meant to be - then fuck it if April isn't going to let herself feel all exposed and weird.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She knows he wants to have sex. It's fair, and it's reasonable, so those eight weeks where he  _knows_ that she's on a clock make him antsy as all get. But it's unsafe then, and it's not even going to really do much for her if she can't feel anything right then, so they have to wait for the prosthesis timings and for when she's feeling full sensations and the check-ups stop. When that's over, sex is on the table. For those eight weeks though, he behaves.

Then the eight weeks are up. Healing goes along spectacularly, and it's the first thing in a long time that goes April's way. 

When they get home, and Leslie's away, and April knows that the prosthesis isn't anywhere near her but neglects to tell Andy, she hides her smirk. When he goes to sit down at the couch she sits across his lap and stares in his eyes. April smiles and kisses him, chuckling at how eager he is. After a few moments they break apart and he's still sitting there staring at her - something he's grown used to doing when they can't go any farther.

"Hey Andy," she says with a small voice, because this is a weird thing to say to someone.

"Hmm?" he asks, unable to form a real sentence.

"Eight weeks is up," she answers him in that same, small voice.

"Oh, yeah, cool," he nods, because she's never told him what one of the options for keeping herself healthy and in-line with daily dilations is. It's a secret, because she wants to surprise him. "So, what's next? Is there, like, another schedule or-?"

She kisses him again because she doesn't want to laugh or get nervous. With his hands on her waist and that kiss, she steels herself.

"You know what I'm supposed to do now?" she does laugh because God, she's just being mean to him now.

"What?" 

She kisses him, and shows him plainly what she's supposed to do - daily - in the name of health. That's what she says, anyways, when Leslie finds them covered in a blanket and sweaty and so tired that April wants to cry because she's so fucking happy. This is in the name of health, and they're sorry about her couch but it's been an hour since their conversation and that moment and April isn't even really sure what time is for a little while. All she knows is they  _have_ to do this every day and she's definitely, completely, enthusiastically okay with that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

That first check-up afterward, to check for proper dilation and vaginal depth and width and all that technical crap, she looks at the doctor with a shy smile when he asks if she's been keeping up her schedule.

"No," she answers. "I've, um, been doing the other thing. Instead of the prosthesis... y'know-"

He grins and laughs, because it's weird but it's honest and natural, too. Still, it's kind of hard to say that she's been having sex  _a lot_ in the name of health. Or something like that. Honestly, the doctor asks her the frequency of the encounters and he almost falls backward. April laughs and Andy walks in with a candy bar, chewing vigorously and with some chocolate stained on his hand from obviously grabbing the bar.

"So, what's up?" he asks, chewing still and with a bit of brown chocolate smeared on the corner of his mouth.

"Whatever makes you happy," the doctor answers, chuckling still. "Just be careful, because you're still healing."

"Okay, Andy and I will stop ruining every surface of Leslie's house," she says, smiling because Andy's eyes widen. "We'll just have regular, boring sex once a day..."

"Wait, does she have to do that?" Andy asks, putting the candy bar in his pocket and walking forward. "I mean, if she has because I could hurt her then that's cool, but-"

"Andy, you can continue your current... erm, schedule," the doctor smiles broadly as he speaks. "But, just be careful. Maybe take a breather or a break every few days or so."

"Oh, cool," he nods and April shakes her head. 

So, they don't have a schedule, really, but April remembers to take Saturdays off. Sort of. They only do it once on Saturdays. But it counts, and when she asks about that schedule they say it's fine and definitely healthier to at least have some kind of dilation once a day. If she doesn't want to use the prosthesis again, then she'll "have" to have sex with Andy.

Oh, darn.

 

 

* * *

 

 

At around four o'clock in the morning, or really who knows April isn't paying attention to any clock, she sits up with the blanket over her chest and staring at Andy. He's lost in watching her, playing with the ends of her hair and staring. It's sweet and everything she never knew she could have, and finding someone has been the best experience of her life. Yes, Leslie would always be treasured for letting her have a place to stay, and day after day of being interrupted by her in the middle of what she calls their daily dilation, or sometimes their bi-daily and differently positioned dilation, is getting tiring. Eventually, and after months of saving up, she can actually get her own place.

Maybe with Andy.

"Hey," she says meekly. "You know... I, um, how I was gonna tell you something at the clinic?"

Andy continues to stare up at her, just listening and twirling her hair.

"A few months ago," she shrugs and looks down again. "Um, hey. So, I love you."

His hand doesn't stop twirling and he doesn't stop staring up at her. While her chest burns up and she feels like she's saying too much, too quickly, Andy just stares. And it's, honestly, fucking terrifying. For a moment she wonders if he doesn't feel the same way, or if he's happy with having gotten sex from her finally and now he's going to move on, and so many other things that him sitting up and kissing her catches April off guard. 

She leans into it and he breaks off, smiling.

"Do you... y'know. Do you, too?" she says stupidly, her words all shaky and scared.

"Duh," he laughs.

"Say it," she requests, because she knows - she really does, past any irrational insecurity - but she wants to hear him say it.

Andy smiles wide and kisses her. It's a few breaths and she thinks he might actually refuse her.

"I do. I love you too," he replies and she can't help but grin.

And, of course, those words meant it was time for another nightly dilation.


	119. Fun in the Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously.
> 
> So for this to make any sense to people that don't follow my tumblr: we've had fun with the headcanon of April/Andy with a whole mess of kids, so first off if that makes you uncomfortable you can skip this chapter right now because it's a lot of that. Five, to be exact, with Jack, and then Robbie as we knew her before the finale, then Sam that never quite made it into a fic, and the final piece of the puzzle - twins Lucy and Victoria.
> 
> Yes, I love this. Yes I will be writing about that often. I'll write the lead-up to this crazy big family, eventually, but for now let's just have some familial fluff.

With a blistering heat overhead, and sandals only barely saving their soles from igniting on hot concrete and asphalt, a small army of Ludgate-Dwyers looks out over a small ridge separating the town from the beach. As far as Andy could see, people were littered there and having fun with things from the water itself - splashing in waves with their hands - to sandcastles constructed by excitable kids and sulking teenagers and he'd never felt better already. Taking the little hands dangling near his shoulders, Andy crossed that short gap with a hop and ran down to find a spot with two kids and the other twin in tow.

Jack carried a little basket and his towel, meeting them and helping Andy to set things for everyone else up while Robbie planted the umbrella in the ground with an enthusiastic thrust. By the time Andy turned around, she was attempting to stand under the umbrella's shade but had to crawl under or her head would bump into the shade. The twin on his shoulders disentangled from him and immediately started, with the help of her twin, encasing his feet in sand.

Looking back up to where they crossed, Andy watched April walk down the beach hand-in-hand with Sam. The little, dirty blonde girl whipped back and forth as if expecting people to be there. With the added "I dare you" in April's eyes, no one bothered to say a word to them. It wasn't like they would, since everyone else was so absorbed in having a good time. By the time she reached the umbrella and the towel, Robbie was looming over Jack and plotting something together. Meanwhile, Andy's shins were now coated in sand and he was slowly becoming a sandy colossus.

"Babe, could I get some sunscreen?" he asked, but Sam was busy sitting under the umbrella and April had no intention of leaving her alone. She was only nine after all. "Fine, I'll go over-"

He attempted to step out of the sand boots but couldn't budge. Andy could have broken through them, but the twins were giggling and continually patting sand up his leg. They were actually going along pretty well and at their rate they'd have him covered in no time. Or at least until the sand could no longer stay held up by little six-year old pats and shaping.

"Dad, just walk out," Robbie patted his leg where the sand sat.

"Shh, your sister's are... they've got me trapped," he said, feigning hopelessness. "I'll never get out of here. Go get your mom and sit with Sam for a little bit."

"But dad, I wanted to-"

"C'mon," he added with a laugh, ruffling her short hair and laughing more when she grumbled her way over to her mother.

Looking down his legs, he watched with glee as the twins patted more sand on his legs to make up for the slight cracks in his bonds when Andy attempted to walk out. This would be their greatest trick on him yet, and he'd let them have it because for once they wouldn't  _stop_ laughing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Mom, dad wants you to go put sunscreen on him since T-1000 and her little evil friend are burying him in sand," Robbie ducked her head to sit under the umbrella, in front of Sam. "So, I'll sit with Sam for a little bit."

April laughed, watching her twirl bits of the towel underneath in her fingers. Setting her book down next to her, she rolled over to look at Sam and kiss her cheek before taking the sunscreen and standing up. Andy was busying himself with his sandy fetters, chuckling at the two of them working so diligently to bury him in it while April meandered her way over to him. His beer gut stuck out a little farther than when they were young and his hair was graying considerably, but she could only lean on her toes and kiss him when she got to him. That was partially because she really wanted to, but also because it elicited a disgusted groan from Jack as he made his way from the water to his towel and the twins called out in agony.

"Gross!"

"Eugh!"

April smiled and gave him a dollop of the sunscreen to use on his arms and face while she walked behind him. Jack walked with his shoulders slumped over to the twins and flopping down only to help them on their work.

"So, how is she?" Andy asked seriously, looking over his shoulder at April.

"She's fine," April sighed and continued down his back until a thought came over her and skipped a portion of his skin. "I can't tell if it's the people or that they're new people."

"Sam's never had a problem with hanging out at Aunt Leslie's," Jack said dully, tapping at sand with a little shovel. "Or Auntie Nat's."

"Probably strangers," Andy suggested and finished his arms, clearly happy. "Sunscreen!"

April put another small bit on his outstretched hand and laughed as he went to town smearing it all over his face and nose. Chuckling, she avoided that same spot over and over and worked up to his neck because that would just be painful. At least her prank would only be funny. All the while, she could see Robbie lying down under the umbrella and Sam laughing at something. Jack and the twins were giggling at his back, Andy asking what was wrong, but April managed to shush them and make Andy believe it was something another kid had done.

When she was finished, April left him a kiss on his gross, oily cheek and walked back to the umbrella. Robbie hurriedly ran off and Sam went back to simply sitting there and watching her mother read.

 

 

* * *

 

 

April watched Andy with one twin on his shoulders and the other under his arm as he struggled free from his beach prison. Or, really, play-struggle and making them laugh hysterically and scream jubilantly as Dad escaped his chains and made to punish them by having some fun in the water. Turning another page, she glanced to the side and watched Sam play with a bit of fabric in her hands absentmindedly. There was no rush to get her out there, and if she didn't want to April wasn't going to force her. She'd have to face her fears one day, but if she didn't  _want_ to then April would sooner watch her enjoy quiet time with her mother than feel scared in the water with other people.

It had been happening for a while. She was used to people she knew, and liked them and talked and did everything a "normal" child did but whenever Sam was out in public she seemed frightened at everything and would break down into crying or pouting fits at the drop of a hat. But when she was left at home, she was perfectly, and April hated the word so much, normal. She had hated it being used towards her, so she doesn't ever want to subject her children to believing there was a normal or abnormal. There was only people.

So she plays by herself and reads a little bit before growing bored of that, lying back side-by-side with April.

"You wanna go out and play with everyone else?" April asked her.

"No," she said in a quiet voice.

"Okay," April said.

Really, she just wanted her kids to grow up happy and  _know_ their parents loved them. Just before she was going to pull her book back up, Robbie was standing in front of them huffing out breaths.

"Mom, c'mon!" she pleaded. "Dad wants you to play with us. You haven't even been in the water."

April looked over at Sam. "I think we're just gonna hang out here," she propped her neck up with her hand and looked down at her book over her sunglasses. "We'll play tomorrow or something-"

"But we've been here a week and you guys haven't even come out once," Robbie pouted and sat down in front of Sam. "And tomorrow we're going on the boardwalk anyways."

"Well, we don't wanna go out and play," she looked over at her younger daughter. "Do we?"

For a few moments, April wondered if this was what she was supposed to do. Even with years of experience, there were still so many things that were just attempts and trial and error at being a decent parent. So far, she'd been successful but the rest of her children mostly took after Andy in their bright cheeriness. Even the twins were more playful than harmful in their pranking and humorous in their tricks, and Jack was sulky but mostly an insecure little boy, and Robbie was most like Andy more than any of them. She was tall and essentially a teddy bear, and then there was Samantha.

April loved all of her children, but Sam was... a challenge. She was different, and April loved that and realized how much  _work_ that could be all at once.

"We could," Sam mumbled, playing in sand with her finger.

"Do you want to?" April leaned over on her elbow, ignoring the almost panting, already overexcited Roberta.

The hardest thing, April realized, was saying no to her kids. Whether it was ice cream, or a toy, or really anything she struggled not to give them every single, little thing they desired and pouted over. That skill had improved, but when it was them just asking for her to have fun with everyone there was absolutely no denying that. Unless, of course, Sam didn't want to.

She turned up and looked at her mother for a second before nodding. "Yeah," she said. "I wanna go swimming."

 

 

* * *

 

 

For around an hour, maybe more April couldn't really tell, Andy competed with Robbie in splashing battles while Jack took the twins a few inches deeper than they could touch. He was still under April's eye the whole time, but she was busy walking Sam through water and throwing waves at Andy after a while. She couldn't contain herself, and she rarely could when playing with her kids. He was all smiles, joined by everyone else, and before long all of them were in an all-out water war. Between splashes, laughter cascaded and fell throughout the family and Andy was hit by more than one group micro-tsunami. Eventually they all turned their aggression on April, Sam clinging to her in defense, and the laughter doubled and tripled and before long every single one of them was simply enjoying a day in the sun. Lucy clambered onto Andy's shoulders once more and April managed to get Victoria on hers, watching Robbie and Jack take Andy's side and Sam on hers.

This was going to be a splash-fight to remember.


	120. Black Paper and Surprises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by GamblingDementor as a fun bit of S3 fluff. I liked the idea, so here we are.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

Weird was always fun for April. People tended towards boring suits and boring attitudes at boring workplaces, so when things broke that mold for even a moment she was excited. There wasn't a whole lot of excitement to be had at City Hall, so when people started acting  _strangely_ to her April thought it would be fun. It was, at least until she tried asking Andy about it and all she got in return was a very stuttery boyfriend who told her nothing was wrong even though she's sure she never asked that.

So April goes back to work and ignores Leslie hiding something behind her back, tucking a bit of her hair back, and looking out of breath. She's probably just pretending to totally not be into Ben, that weirdo, but it's fine because April thinks it's funny.

"Do you know why everyone's being so weird?" April asked Ron when he left his office. 

"No," he said shortly. "I stand by my comment that everyone in this department is just another-"

"Yeah, yeah," she waved a finger in a circle, bored by this already. "Everyone's a government employee and on their road to punctual slavery, or something."

"Good girl," Ron noted with a brief smile before returning to do  _whatever_ it was he was doing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The day only got weirder. Andy kept getting uncomfortable and acted even more unusual around her, skirting around April and only barely returning her kiss. It was kind of hurtful, but she didn't spend too much thinking about that. She had actions to prove otherwise, so April just brushed it off and went back to work. Noting how weird it was that the little windows were plastered with black paper, April just assumed it was something maintenance needed. Maybe they were finally painting over everything.

She attempted to open the doors but before she could get in Leslie peeled out from the corner and stood in front of her. A hurried series of negatives fell out of her, all garbled and nonsensical but clearly telling her to stay out.

"No!" she shouted after letting out a long, exasperated noise with her hands raised defensively. "You can't... there's a, party, but, no, you... April, you're more beautiful by the day and I can only hope-"

"You really know how to make someone very uncomfortable Leslie," April noted but was still barred by her. "Why is everyone being so  _weird_ today!?"

Leslie held back with a broken sentence. "Well, I... y'know, you ought to care more about work," Leslie slouched and put her hands on her hips, causing an eyeroll from April. "Like that! You're insubordinate-"

"Hey, Leslie!" Andy's voiced piped up and when he saw April and she turned to look at him, exasperated, he clammed up. "I mean, hello... Ms. Knope."

"Andy, I know you two are friends," she laughed, incredulous. "What the hell is going on?"

There wasn't a second where April was actually worried about anything. This was just all so surreal and unexpected, strange and just simply  _bizarre_ , that she had to ask what the fuck was going on. After all, Andy wasn't ever hesitant and Leslie was straining to lie. All she wanted to do was go into that stupid department, look at a stupid phone, and spend the whole day on her laptop. Was that too much to ask for?

Still, Leslie didn't move and Andy looked just as awkward as ever.

"Andy, why don't you go inside and get the... stuff ready?" Leslie asked cautiously, turning her head but never taking her eyes off of April. 

"Gotcha," he said and slid between the doors.

April caught sight of something red and glittery for a second before the black paper interrupted her. 

"Fine, I'll just go in through the courtyard," April shook her head and started to walk away but Leslie stood in front of her again.

As April walked, Leslie stood in front of her and going backwards. Every few feet she stumbled and looked over her shoulder in case they ran into someone, which thankfully never happened. April considered just hoofing it back to the double doors and going in through them, but was enjoying watching Leslie power-moonwalk. 

"Why are you guys so-"

April had started to say something but she crossed over into the area where she could see clearly through the courtyard. Again, those Parks windows were plastered in black paper. Groaning to herself, she brushed past Leslie and made her way across the courtyard. Maybe she could just go in, grab her laptop, and leave the building. Pulling the door open, she wasn't greeted by painters or by maintenance workers. 

Instead there was Andy, setting up a banner with the words "Happy 21st Birthday!" in curly, red letters against a black banner. The department wasn't coated in anything weird, or colorful, just that banner and a few other assorted hangings and balloons. A cake sat in the center of the room on a tray, something scribbled on it hastily. When she opened the door, Andy shot her a look and his face shifted quickly to worry.

"No, you weren't supposed to see all this crap yet!" he said with a groan. "Oh man, now I've gotta surprise you tomorrow."

April wanted to say something about that but instead just smirked. "What is all this crap, anyways?" she pointed to a balloon hovering over his head. "And why does that one say 'Happy 50th Anniversary?'"

Andy snatched it out of the air and quickly threw it under his arm. Leslie smashed in through the door behind her, nearly running into April in the process. She groaned when she saw the two of them talking, but just slumped her shoulders and gave Andy a disappointed look.

"This is..." Andy drew a long breath, puffing out his chest and waving his arm around the room. "The birthday you deserved to have."

"What?"

"We were setting this up since you didn't have the best night," Leslie added. "And we thought-"

"You deserved the greatest twenty-first birthday in the history of the planet," Andy said with what he thought was a sexy grin and angling of his brow. "So we were gonna throw you a surprise make-up birthday party!"

April turned to look at Leslie who nodded to confirm what he was saying. Turning back to Andy, still slightly bowed and with that curiously goofy grin and bunching of his eyebrows she had to look up and away from him for a second to gather her bearings. She let out a heavy breath and grinned. 

"So, you were being weird... because you were setting this up for me?" she asked quietly, walking forward and promptly forgetting Leslie was there.

"Totally, because you are-"

She nearly leapt forward at him. She pushed him against the table with the force of the kiss and had to get all these emotions out of her as quickly as possible before they were too much to deal with and overwhelmed her. After a few heavier moments, Leslie cleared her throat but neither of them were stopping. The cake toppled over onto the floor to be replaced by Andy's back on the table, and they could hear Leslie start to say something before opening and closing the door to the courtyard. After that, they were alone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"That was the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me," April said softly when they were back at Burly's place. 

"Sorry."

"For what?" she chuckled.

"You like creepy and weird, and I gave you sweet," he shrugged. "So I'm-"

April leaned over to kiss him again. "I don't think anyone's gonna fault you for remembering how crappy my birthday party was," she put her hand to his cheek and smiled. "And then making up for it."

"So you're not mad that it was sweet?" he asked slowly.

"Dude, no," she had a tinge of laughter in her voice but didn't look away. "That was amazing. You're amazing."

"No, you-"

He clearly meant to say something, but April busied herself cutting him off with a kiss. That really, truly, was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her. Maybe one day she'd get him to understand that she  _does_ like those kinds of things, just not from anyone else.


	121. Disembodied - V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure of whether I wanted this to be in here or not, but the initial requester for the fic wanted to see some of the rehab stuff. So, well, we're here!
> 
> This, however, is the end of this story. I hope y'all enjoyed it, because it was strange and new for me given the connection to the real person Aubrey Plaza and not the character April.

"Ugh, this is stupid," she says, forcing the tip of the pencil into the page until the plastic housing bends and breaks. "This is... s-stupid!"

She gets up and pushes the chair out from behind her, storming off and out of the therapist's office. Every single time they attempt to help her it all feels like a black void and noise and everything she tries to write is a mess, like the mechanical skill was just as lost as the perceptive thought of idea to paper. Beyond being annoying and simply frustrating, it's all a pathetic thing that she's  _twenty one_  and can't even write a sentence anymore.

Speaking is hard enough. Sometimes the words still feel insufficient and come unsure, stuttery, and there's a part of April clawing in worry that she'll never find the time to say all of them again. Now, on top of that, she can't even figure out how to  _write_. Before she can scream out loud in frustration, she has to remember to call Andy.

 _Fucking worthless_ , she thinks.  _It's all pointless. Who cares, anyways?_

The professors that ask for essays would care. Leslie would care. Everyone would care if she couldn't ever figure this out again, so she leaves her appointment because it's all stupid and she's annoyed at literally everything anyone is saying to her right now. It's all a big mess, just like this stroke thing, and she wishes it never happened to her. Life is already a sack of shit with the way her brain  _already_ worked before the stroke, and the people she'd hurt, and now there's this entirely different, daily problem on her hands that she just doesn't know how to handle. Stalking off to the lobby, she texts Andy to let him know she needs picked up.

That's pathetic, too. She can't even drive herself anywhere, either. Before she would have just walked out to her car, drove herself to her house, and been fine. Now she can't even do that, and Andy sticks firmly to that so much so that he made her promise not to do anything like that. The thing that mostly got her to agree was his voice and how weird and shaky it got when he asked her to promise. Tiring didn't even begin to describe whatever their back-and-forth was before this, so she did.

Now it's a big, obnoxious mess.

When he shows up, she sighs and walks with him back to the car. Slipping her arm around his back, April sidles up to him and loves how comfortable they can be without that barrier separating them. There's no reason to act like they don't care anymore, and there's no reason to be standoffish or anything other than stuck to the other one all the time. With everything else in her life being annoying and a total nightmare, at least Andy was a comfort. Something went right for once, and this big, cuddly doof she really likes is definitely a great thing to have gone well, so she smashes her face into his arm and grumbles nonsense as they walk back to his car.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asks from the other side of the car, opening his door after jostling the handle a bit. April has to do the same on her side.

"Talk about..." she can feel the word and almost bristles in anger when it doesn't come out at first. She sighs. "About wh-what?"

Sitting down, she notices Andy's eyebrows furrow and his eyes follow her. "Dunno, you weren't supposed to be out for another hour."

"It's... nothing," she manages to get out. 

"Okay, but if you want to talk," he says slowly and without ever looking away from her, "just let me know. I said I wanted to help, and I mean it."

"Sure," she nods. 

When they get back to Burly's place, the increasingly boring day thankfully lurches to a halt and it's just the two of them hanging out. Now that the local government is shut down in Pawnee, there really isn't that much to do. Sometimes Andy tries to go back to work but there's really no reason for him to be there so she just laughs and pulls him back into bed. It seems as good a time as any to focus on her rehabilitation and working through things she knows she can beat, but now that she's actually doing it there's nothing but frustration and annoyance around every corner. 

Doctors are as useless and obnoxious as usual and this time they think they're helping her but they only feel like overbearing parents, and she already has two of those so why the hell would she bother with paying someone to be a third. Lying down on the couch, she's just so tired of the whole day. The whole ordeal makes her feel like shit and she just wants to forget it.

"You want some leftover pizza?" Andy asks, unsure. A cardboard box shifts and she can hear him sniff loudly. "Ew, nevermind. I'll go throw this out and order another one."

"Sounds good," she smiles and when he walks by he leans down and kisses her.

Satisfaction, joy, love, relief... the emotions that conflict over those few seconds after they kiss are wild, changing, and April doesn't know how to handle them sometimes. They usually overcame her at night when she wakes up from a troubled sleep with Andy nuzzling her shoulder and asking if she was okay, coming to a head when she can't remember what she wants to say so she leans over and kisses him. Smiling to herself, eyes closed, she hears him in another room calling the place they always order from.

It's easy getting lost in someone, but finding her way back to herself has never been easier with him. Things aren't just about him, or just about her, they're about them. He wants to help her, and she wants to smother him in kisses to let him  _really_ know what she feels, and they both want to be together. There's no reason to hide otherwise, but everything in the last few weeks has been slowly breaking her down. One day she might be able to work her hands and get her brain to function at all, and she can write a few words in a coherent pattern, but this isn't the norm. Instead she's used to crushing pencils and getting so infuriated she wants to throw a chair through a window.

After a minute or so, Andy returns and sits down on the floor in front of the couch with his back against the front edge of the cushions. She naturally lets a hand droop over his shoulder and Andy's head shifts to the left and kisses her wrist. 

"You're bummed," he states. 

 _You're too good_ , she thinks.

"C'mon, I'm not that dumb," he jokes but that's not at all funny to her. He takes her hand in his right and runs his index from knuckle to knuckle.

It feels like he's exploring those little valleys, as if he's never felt her hands before, and it's strangely intimate but entirely comforting. It feels, oddly enough, calming and soothing. His finger touches the slopes of her knuckles and she just breathes out, trying to answer him. 

"Dunno, I'm still... still, st-still having problems," she struggles to say, but Andy never says anything to push her or interrupt her. It's nice. "I can't figure it out. Ugh... it's the worst."

"You wanna talk about it?" he turns around but still holds her hand. "I mean, if you're cool with it."

For a second she just watches him. The way he never looks away from her like this bores him, or that there's something else on his mind, and she smiles softly back at him. He at least pretends to look like he's listening to _what_ she's saying and not  _how_ she says it, and that makes things slightly easier. His fingers still feel like the thing that keeps her lungs working and that's oddly reassuring. Those stupid people at the clinic just stared and made her feel strange and uncomfortable, but knowing Andy made his unwavering eye contact make her feel at ease. 

"I'm not... I'm not doing so great. I can't ev-ev-even, I can't even say anything right and I'm supposed to write it all too," she shakes her head and feels the growing anxiety in talking build up. "Don't worry about it, Andy."

"I don't wanna push it, but I said I wanted to help and you wanted me to help," Andy shrugs and looks down at their hands for a second. "I dunno how I can, but maybe we can... y'know, do this."

"We could, like, tr-tr-tr... try," April winces and shakes her head quickly. "We can try to work here."

"I could get a dictionary and learn a bunch of cool words to spell and say, too," he starts getting excited and his eyes light up making April chuckle. "I mean, you should still go to the doctors and do everything, y'know, regular and stuff."

"Doesn't hurt to have... another t-teacher," she leans down and kisses him again, this time fuller and harder.

It's hard to speak what she's feeling, so actions work. They work much, much better and make everything simpler and the concepts are a lot simpler to grasp for the both of them. He doesn't have to be anxious that she's just fucking with him - and, really, that should hurt her but on some level she knows she deserves that reservation - and she doesn't have to struggle to explain that she wants him. Pulling away, she realizes he hasn't moved his hand from hers and that relaxing play from his fingers on the back of her hand is still sending shockwaves through her.

"So-"

The doorbell rings and Andy finally turns away, letting go to get the pizza. When he returns she's an inch from jumping him. He goes to get a drink and when he gets back she opens the first box and sees a double order of extra cheese. For whatever reason, and she doesn't question it, that makes her stand up and turn him around towards the couch. They don't get to the pizza for a half an hour, leaving it to cool in favor of something much better.

 

 

* * *

 

 

So, while City Hall stays an obliterated wreck on the inside, they work.

Andy's a natural teacher, his eye contact exhilarating and calming all at once somehow, and he never pushes her to finish sentences or to write them out. That's the plan - she speaks, then writes it down. Something about that was way easier than the slow pace she had at the clinic. They wanted her to start from the very beginning but the  _ease_ of it was just as frustrating as they thought writing complicated things would be. Alphabets and number lines got fucking boring and just made it easier for her to get angry at everything, but they just wrote out transcripts of stupid conversations at Burly's.

It's never stupid to him, though. When she can't figure a word out - sometimes it's the physical motions, sometimes the spelling, and sometimes she knows the meaning but having it in the middle of her sentence feels so strange and unusual that she has to fight her hands into writing - he'll ask her what it means and look at the dictionary to make sure she's right, and watch her write it out intently. When she can't get her hand to work he sits behind her and guides her hand. 

By the time night falls, she's written everything they've said for hours down on paper. The conversations are stilted sometimes, sure, but it helps. Her stutter might not be gone, but that's for a speech coach to help her with and not Andy's job. Still, he does the same thing that guy does and listens to every word she says and considers it instead of looking like he's waiting on her next word in an anxious fit. But with Andy, there's a different respect there and it feels like something growing between them.

Some days, after leaving the clinic and taking a bus, something feels wrong. Maybe it's her skin itching, or her hair feeling extra thin, or breathing takes just an extra microsecond to think about instead of just happening, but it makes her nervous and by the time she gets back to Burly's she's just happy to have someone tell her she's fine. It's never a real problem. The next day she asks her therapists if she's going crazy, and the word  _hypochondriac_ gets thrown around a lot until it becomes meaningless. Eventually, she takes a notepad with her on the bus and whenever something like that happens she writes that word down, over and over again, until it gets pounded into her mind that she's not actually going to start bleeding out of her eyes because her heart feels like it's beating too fast. There won't be another stroke just because she can feel something vaguely off.

When she gets home, and it's so nice to call it that, she's greeted by Andy. They can talk and start their work for the day. Talk, order food, write, and of course she'll be overcome with everything he's offering her that every night ends exactly the same way - tied up in covers and entangled in each other.

 _I love you_ , she thinks.

It hits her, and hits her hard, thinking that. So hard that it might take her another month to let him know, but it's definitely there. 

 _I love you_ , she thinks.

"I love you," she says plainly the next day. 

His face lights up, like he's never heard anything better in his entire life. He picks her up and spins her around, laughing and making April's cheeks redden. By the time she's back on the ground he's out of breath and staring at her with that massive grin spread across his face. Dimples and those awesome valleys of emotion between his wrinkles at the corners of his mouth make her chest burn with those three words all over again.

It's at most another four seconds after she says that, but it's a worrisome eternity to her.

"Dude, I love you too," he almost shouts. 

She probably could have done without the  _dude_ but it still makes her smile wide and lock her wrists behind his neck. They'll take a day off.


	122. Reality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Yay?
> 
> Either way, here's something that was requested a little while ago.

It's difficult knowing that you're used to a life, whether you like it or not. Peculiarities that are distinctly yours, and those you want to  _forget_ , crop up all the time and you know how familiar they are and terrible at the same time. April feels that often, forgetting why she even exists in space sometimes like her body isn't meant to be at her desk or moving around and that it'd be easier to let someone take over for her and replace what she's clearly screwing up. When she gets up in the morning, her bones feel brittle and tiny so she doesn't worry about taking a shower.

At work, people get close to her and walk away carefully as if she won't notice. She does. April notices when they talk to her and they can smell her breath too; she forgets to brush her teeth regularly, and her breath must be vile by now. So she spends a lot of the day inwardly making fun of them and externally ignoring everything, pretending it's not worth her time, until the day's over.

Things don't really  _matter_ anymore. Dating a guy that's actually dating another guy is just a funny joke to her, because it's not like she can talk to them about anything. Every single time she tries to ask one of them if they've ever felt what she is, Derek and Ben just look at her and chuckle like it's supposed to be an ironic thing. It isn't, and they make her feel like shit. Still, there's nothing better for her to do and no one else that will take her so she just puts up with it the next day, telling them it was just a joke and asking if it was good method acting.  _Next day_ , and it's easier because they don't have to know how she reacts at home when there's a door and walls between other people and a warm, soft bed to hide in.

There is one person who notices, or who understands at least.

He leaves mints on her desk unquestioned, and he has her number and occasionally she sees missed calls from a landline that tells her to take a shower. Sometimes April listens, and sometimes she ignores it, but when she goes in to work and meets Ron's eyes things seem less ridiculous to her. Wearing the same clothes she has been for three days, no one asks - not even Ron - but it's still there and she thinks everyone's paying acute, nonstop attention to her in every single flaw and fault.

The reality is much more terrifying: no one actually cares. Nobody pays attention to it, or cares, and the few people who are around to care only view things as a massive, grand goof ready to be workshopped and the other won't approach her at all to talk. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy's different. When he talks to her he only smiles despite her noxious breath and the way bags form under her eyes, and Andy tells her she's awesome despite every bit of her laughing at that. It's impossible to hate that, and she thinks there's something there; she thinks that he's all right, unlike every other person in existence, mostly because he doesn't think she's a walking joke ready to be exploited.

Then he dumps her like old takeout.

Her hair feels more brittle at home after, her teeth weak and thin, and her arms are totally worthless. Walking through the door takes an effort and when she gets up the stairs, she's sure sleep will come immediately but it doesn't. Not for six more hours of blindly swiping on her phone, staring at the ceiling, and all the lethargy she hates but can't shape into actual sleep or exhaustion. Grabbing the bear sat right on her bed, she throws it under her arm, stares at her phone, and squeezes the stuffed animal like making its head pop would release all this  _emotion_ that's building inside of her. She falls asleep still wearing her sneakers, jacket, and the bear in the crook of her arm when her mother wakes her at one in the afternoon.

Back to work.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She's never thought about doing it, because even that makes her mind spiral. Her parents aren't rich, but they're well off, and doing that would just make them a little poorer. It's never about who would miss her, because realistically she can't even finish counting on her hand who would miss her. Two people? Three, maybe, if Andy counted.

In her frustration, April sleeps with a guy that's been asking her out since junior year of high school. Halfway through the night, she starts crying inexplicably and when he tries to comfort her April lashes out and ends up punching him in the face. That only makes her sob more, getting dressed quickly and running out of his apartment. It's a mess, everything is, and so is she. When she's at home, April just tucks herself into bed with her phone and bear hopeful for more sleep.

This time it doesn't come, and she's glad that thoughts of ending it all are difficult to come by at this hour.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When things happen, and she's been so far gone for so long that thinking about it physically hurts, and Andy  _seems_ like he's done everything he can to apologize she's still worried. What if he's lying, and this is all a ruse? She knows Andy, really knows him, and even then she still thinks he's going to kiss another girl just seconds after her. Before her, more likely. Still, she thinks it and when he kisses her past terrible breath and a likely awful taste, and holds the back of her head like her hair isn't greasy and thin, April smiles.

It isn't that she forgot, or stopped smiling. That isn't it, but rather it's the first time in a long time she's made a choice and feels okay smiling. Andy makes her feel okay smiling, and he's always doing it. 

She goes home and takes two showers, one after the other, and sets an alarm. Little, little things but life feels less like a massive train wreck when she does those things and feels a little better getting the most basic human chores done. Doing the dishes is easier, eating is far easier, and smiling when he greets her at work with a hug and a kiss is  _much_ simpler. 


	123. Periods F@#$ing Suck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested on tumblr as "Andy, 6 year old Jack, and 4 year old "baby" cuddle with and comfort April after a long day of work while she's on her period and feeling awful."
> 
> I'm... unsure what I want to do with NOLY. I love what's here, and I still have requests that I'll need to get to, but at the moment I'm more interested in attempting to write longform stories. I'm sure that will make many of you happy, but the frequency of fic will slow down (and already has) because of that!

Hours.  _Hours_.

Hours don't really mean a lot until you can feel every second at work as infuriating as the last. Minutes between them, seconds within those, and they're all the worst. Sluggish, gross movements feel just like that - sluggish and gross. April can't even bother to move when she gets home. Washington is always so  _hot_ and _humid_ and makes her feel even more like a giant ball of slime.

April liked  _fake_ blood and liked playing with the idea of being a zombie. When she was a kid and first learned about what the hell a period was, she thought it'd be cool and that the blood would be awesome.

She was fucking  _wrong_. So wrong she wants to beat the hell out of her past self and make her get ten or twelve of those weird, vibrating massage chairs.

"Hey babe?" Andy calls out, his void loud and rattling in her skull. "Sorry. Um, d'you want me to go out and get you some stuff?"

April looks over at him, Jack sprinting over and launching himself onto the couch beside her. The dull throb thankfully barely spikes when he does it, so she winces through a smile and nods to Andy.

"Would you?"

"Anything for the most awesome, amazing wife in the world. Most beautiful too. Definitely super pretty," he laughs and leaves her smiling at him, trying to ignore her headache and the general  _blegh_ in the air.

He's the best husband sometimes. Well that's not true. He's the best all the time, but sometimes he's actually perfect.

"Hey ma?" Jack prods her side, and good  _God_ that hurts.

"What's up?" she whispers, dropping her head on his and humming something to cancel out the furious noise in her brain.

"Dad said you're really tired this week," he shifts closer to her and suddenly two little arms are around her waist and the one behind her moves very slowly. "Said we should help you get better."

"Did he?" she chuckles. Andy even knows how to word it to his kids, and he's as amazing a teacher to their children as Johnny Karate should be. "What'd he say you guys should do?"

"Robbie's s'posed to paint your nails for you," he mumbles against her overly large sweatshirt. "With mud, or blood, or something."

"That's so sweet of you," she gets out before feeling a long, intense pain coursing through her entire lower body and melting any nerve it comes in contact with as it spreads.

She whimpers and Jack's little arm moves along her back awkwardly like he has no idea what to do. It's the thought that matters and April's feeling better already, at least in her head. The physical agony is still bordering on crippling, but she feels a little less like whole slimy, gross feeling is still  _everywhere_ and she probably needs to go to the bathroom but Andy isn't back from the store yet. However, she's snuggling with her son and there's something amazing and comfortable about that. It's not long before more footsteps come trundling along, a clink of bottles loud in the silence, and another body latches onto her.

"Hey bear," April mumbles, leaning over and kissing the top of Roberta's head.

The almost paralytic surge calms down until her voice is hoarse when it comes out and simply sitting there almost hurts. Then Roberta giggles from the little kiss and walks over to where April's feet are resting on the coffee table. Something about that little noise is oddly soothing, just like her kids right now. Whether Andy paid them off or what, she didn't care. She's without her slippers, hating how hot  _those_ are, and it's not long before those clinking bottles come into play.

When Andy returns, April's nodding off with Jack still hugging her and Robbie's efforts are obvious. Her toes aren't… well, they're  _technically_ painted, but going so far to say her toenails are done up is definitely not right. The strokes applied were clearly sloppy, running on her skin a little and her fingernails are somehow even worse. But it was fun, and Robbie liked doing it so who cares? April goes into work with that mess sometimes, and it's funny.

So she sits back in content, her kids at her side and each of them whispering something. Probably scary stories, judging by Roberta's wide eyes and Jack's extra deep tunneling into April's shirt.

"Hey guys, what's up?" he shakes the bag in his hand and April makes a groan of appreciation.

Standing up, almost catapulting herself across the room, April hungrily takes the bag and retreats to the bathroom.

"So… you guys did a good job but it's not over yet," Andy chuckles when she's walking away, April smiling to herself. "We still gotta cook, and you're gonna go hang out with Aunt Leslie for a couple hours…"


	124. Making Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested on tumblr as "Leslie goes to April about triplet advice before April's even a mom because of how much time she spends with the kids and her success in helping plants the "realistic thoughts about kids" thoughts in her mind."
> 
> Well, that's another kidfic for some of you to ignore!

"So, this vitally important meeting you called me over for involves brownies and ice cream… and waffles, of course," April notes, shaking her head at the fresh plate on Leslie's kitchen countertop. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"No, trust me! This is all for-"

She means to continue but then, like they could tell food was being set out, the triplets each snagged a plate and topped it with scoops and other assorted sugary goods. If April didn't know Ben made the brownies, and that the ice cream came from a carton, she'd be a little worried about this whole situation. Then again, what did she care? April definitely doesn't think  _a lot_ about how much junk food the triplets have. Not one bit.

When they leave, Leslie takes a deep breath and reaches for the lone, remaining waffle. Instead of taking it, she just leaves it there and looks at April in earnest.

"I know, that was a… buttload of sugar," Leslie shrugs.

"It's nine o'clock," April laughs. "Also, why the hell did you call me over at this hour. I  _do_ have a husband at home I haven't seen in, like, four days."

"Speaking of, how's work?" Leslie's hand absentmindedly approaches the waffle, and April can't help but chuckle. "Oh, screw it."

The fridge door cracks open quickly and soon the waffle's loaded with whipped cream and sitting happily on the plate.

"It's fine, I guess. I mean… it's great, and I love it, but I'm, y'know, it's weird," April finally sits on a stool next to the little island in the kitchen. "Life's weird right now."

"Andy still-?"

"Yes," April slouches.

"You know you don't have to do anything you don't want to, April," she offers. "I mean, that's obvious-"

"Duh."

"But it's not for everyone, so if you're not ready or won't ever be I'm sure it'll be fine," Leslie waves her off, getting ready to dig her fork into the waffle when April sighs. Letting it clang on the plate, she looks up. "What?"

"What if it's not fine?" April stares as she speaks, all of it suddenly bubbling up. All of the worries that have been in her head for a long, long time come out. Some of them, the ones she never wants to share, mainly  _that_ one, stay put thankfully. "What if he hates me forever? What if I never want it, or he does so much that he-"

"April," interrupting her friend, Leslie shakes her head. "None of that's going to happen. Now, I have to ask you something."

"Oh, I thought this was just going to be me watching your kids' diets again."

"Well… no. I mean, if you want to. No, don't do that. I've had enough surprise vegetable attacks for one lifetime, I don't need whatever strange magic you're working to keep you looking like that-"

"Leslie, you've seen the garbage I eat. Don't ask me," April shrugs.

"Right, so magic," Leslie nods and continues her schpiel. "So, there's a whole soccer tryout and Sonia wants to do it instead of her mock Supreme Court club she always goes to. Plus, she might miss a period of  _math_ every few weeks if she gets in. You know how much she loves math."

"Yes. Yes, I do," April grimaces. "Why are you asking me this?"

"You guys babysit them all the time," she picks up her fork and aims it at the waffle before groaning. "I was thinking maybe you'd tell me I was right in saying she couldn't go to tryouts."

April just sits and stares for a moment before speaking. "I dunno, Leslie. She's your kid-"

"And I want your opinion," Leslie has that same, pleading look. It would have been enough, but of course Leslie happens. "Please, please, please. I swear, I won't call you stupid this time or say your ideas are terrible. I never mean it anyways!"

"Calm down," April laughs. "You really want my actual opinion?"

"Of course!"

"Why?" April asks, honestly curious.

"Oh, I hope you're always giving me actual opinions but every week since the wedding you tell me I should divorce Ben so maybe I should lower my expectations," Leslie trails off before looking back at her, glancing over to the stairs and then to April. "Because I trust you. Plus, you've got… that instinct."

Instead of asking her about that, already dreading the word, April just squeezes her eyes shut to think a little harder. "Sonia's not going to fail algebra because of this. Not even close. If anything she'll skip a year of math. So, like, don't worry about that at all."

"So I should let her do it?"

"Wouldn't it make her so happy, though?" April suggests, remembering her face when Andy runs around with her and how she tires  _him_ out sometimes. Then she pictures Andy's face, smiles at the thought, and has to burn it away. "I mean, she'll love it. It'll give her an outlet for all of that pent up energy, too. Wouldn't that be awesome to lose for at least a little while? Yeah, you'd have to pick her up and drop her off, but she'd also love you for it and not that she already doesn't. Plus, what's there to lose?"

"Model UN! Debate!"

"Which she can do in high school, or not at all. Trust me, Leslie: you don't want to tell your daughter what she likes isn't cool enough. Even if your alternative is… ugh,  _debate_ ," April sneers but tries to remember her usual checklist and mental patterns with clients. It's refreshing to be mentally stimulated again. Andy's amazing and all, but work tiring her brain in a good way was  _totally_ new and something he could never really give her. "Just don't, y'know, stifle her interests or whatever."

Somewhere along her little ramble, Leslie's face changed. April was too busy talking and thinking to pay attention to it, at least much, and didn't realize the smile working its way there. It's something knowing and April hates it, because she's usually right too. Sighing, April closes her eyes and awaits the deluge of advice. When it doesn't come she looks around as if expecting time to be stopped and instead is only met with that same smile.

"Why are you look at me like that? Are you a serial killer? You have to tell me if you're a serial killer," April pokes her finger toward her. "How do you do it? Do you want to wear my skin-?"

"April, I'm not… oh, whatever. I'm just really impressed at your answer," she accepts the grumble at ignoring April's attempts at exposing her supposed crimes. "It sounds-"

"Oh God, please don't say it," April clutches her stomach.

Leslie stops and nods her head. "Well, that was all I needed to talk to you about. I'll see you later," she smiles and April finds her way out of the house.

 _Like a mother_  is what Leslie was about to say. What she doesn't know is that April would be so horrendous at it her kids would be a mess. They'd be totally uncool, stupid, and would grow up to be failures in every way. Most likely because of her and her inability to raise a freaking plant. How the hell was she supposed to be able to raise a kid? All her decisions were terrible, her advice was awful anyways, and April half expects every kid she sends out her office to come back a week later addicted to smack. Sonia would tryout and Leslie would be so mad, and life would be terrible.

A week later, April gets a care package at work. It's got little notes - dozens of them - from Sonia along with a batch of cookies. Each note tells her she's so happy that her mom was convinced to let her play, and she knows exactly who did it.

April spends a  _lot_ of time reading those notes for a few months. The cookies don't last nearly as long, but still.

Still, those notes sink deep into her mind. They ask her all sorts of questions that she suddenly has the answers to. Paper and words have no real solutions in and of themselves, but the little smiles and notes and, later when she's over at their house, Sonia's massive hug for her all start that first key tumbling. They all send that first signal, like little fires, that make her think she might be capable of it.

She might actually be okay at it.


	125. Closed Eyes and Stuffed Animals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested as "April + stuffed animals" because I have the worst headcanons.

"Dude, what are these?" Andy laughed, looking through the hamper full of her things they brought to Burly's house.

She sprinted over to him and tore the little bear out of his hand.

"Hey, why'd you-"

"Don't look in there. Close your eyes, stop looking," she said in a hurried tone. Andy, for whatever reason, listened and stood happily with his eyes closed. "I told you to let me know when you got to the hamper. Dude... how many have you taken out?"

"Like, five. Six, maybe. Why didn't you tell me you had so many, April?" Andy keeps his eyes closed throughout the whole conversation, still asking her questions as she took the collection she's slowly -  _quietly, privately_ \- built up out of the little fabric funnel. "That little turtle is super cute."

She looks at the discolored turtle that she loved so much as a kid, and the dumb rip in its arm that she had fixed over and over again despite the fraying fabrics all over the thing. He really is cute, but Andy didn't need to see that. Or know about it. Really, they needed to keep her icy exterior as common knowledge as before. She sure as hell isn't going to deal with the fallout of anyone knowing about these things. Hell, Andy's her first boyfriend since middle school to know about them.

"Really?"

"Oh my God, I want all of them on our bed. Or maybe not, that might weird," he pondered over it, tapping his chin with his eyes still closed. "Okay, so maybe in the room. Not on the bed."

"Definitely not on the bed we're gonna have sex in," she smirked. "Tons, by the way."

"Nice," he pumped his fist in the air, still without seeing anything. "Being married's gonna be so freaking cool."

"Isn't it already?" she asked with a light chuckle.

"Oh, that's not what I meant!" he turned around the wrong way, thinking he was still facing her. He waved at no one, his back to April. "I didn't mean that! You're the best, babe. You really are, but... uh, I mean it's going to be cool to just be around each other all the time even more and now you've got cute stuffed animals I didn't know about and you're the best and-"

"Shut up," she laughed, walking behind him and hugging him tight. "You can open your eyes now."

He does, and when he turns around the animals are all in a pile on the floor and April's moving to sit down in front of them. 

"Uh, I thought-"

"Do you wanna just stand there or are we going to go over each and every single one of these names and backstories," she scoffed, already picking up the turtle he pointed out earlier and smiling wistfully. "This is Freddy. I got him when I was nine, and he's basically the coolest turtle on the planet. He was the first animal I got, and then it got really bad. I mean, I had ones before... but he's the one that I kept and he's so cool and... what?"

April stopped herself because Andy wasn't moving and he had the widest, dumbest grin on his face.

"Babe, you are  _so_ cute!" he laughed, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek before kneeling in front of the pile. "Okay, so you gotta tell me what's up with this lion with one leg."

"Oh God, I never told you about how my sister used to chew all my crap?" she started, feeling a strange sensation in her chest at how easy it is to just  _talk_ about this stuff with him. There's still so much to tell him and she can't wait to do it, but first there was something she needed him to do. "But wait... first, I need you to promise me not to tell anyone else about this, okay?"

"I wouldn't dare," he agreed, looking her in the eye and exchanging another smile.

"I love you."

"Love you too," and then they went off exploring each of her sizable collection's past and histories, names and animal-occupations. 


	126. Prank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love April/Andy with kids. I love them with a lot of kids. Here's some more on that headcanon that I find completely enjoyable and great.
> 
> Requested as something about the big family and the Knope-Wyatt triplets. I hope this works, since I had to slightly alter it to make sense within the timeline.

"So, are you gonna be okay?"

April snaps her head up to look at Leslie amidst the chaos. In their already fairly small house in Washington, a stream of kids fly in and out from the front door and through the kitchen to grab food or barrel across tile and carpet with mud staining their feet. A six year old Jack and four year old Roberta were too busy destroying their tiny yard to show up that often, but the triplets had an insatiable hunger from their apparent boredom in the neighborhood. 

"What?" April asks, her eyes blurring from staring down at work. "Sorry, I was just-"

"You need to relax, babe," Andy calls out from behind, carrying a plate full of bagel bites, stacked so wide and high she's sure he cooked over a hundred of them. "Right, Leslie? Isn't stress bad for the babies?"

April sighs loudly because he's right, but she doesn't want to admit it. There's  _things_ that need done, and she can't just take a break that day because she's five months pregnant with  _two_ babies at the same time - and she really would give Andy a pat on the back if it wasn't  _her_ problem - when there's so much work to be done and she's in charge of maybe her largest project in her entire career. Being given a more senior, executive role never felt right to April before when she worked for the Parks department but overseeing the workflow and employment of people that actually give a crap about the future of their clients fit her so well. She really couldn't just ignore the pay raise either if they intended on feeding the two monsters they were going to add to their family of fiends.

"Look Andy, we've had this conversation-"

"I'm just saying that you should probably take a break and go read a book and not work-" he interrupts, almost slipping on some caked mud just under his steps. One bagel bite fell to the floor and it vanished as a Knope-Wyatt triplet quickly scooped it up, uncaring about the contact with their floor. "Leslie, your kids are gonna eat all of these aren't they?"

"Yep," she nods, watching her daughter fly by to pick up the wayward snack food and grab three more from the plate Andy's carrying. "They will eat every single one of those. You might have to order pizza too."

Leslie winces when April sighs. "Do you ever feed your kids? Wait, don't answer that. I know what you feed them," she sneers as Andy puts the steaming pile of freshly baked pizza-like food on the countertop. "Or what Ben feeds them. Seriously, Leslie I told you-"

"I know. I know what you told me April and for the last time I'm not divorcing Ben," April gives her a pleading look for a moment before faltering. "I'm not even going to do what you guys did. Which, by the way, you could have always just gotten your vows renewed."

"Yeah, we know that," Andy nods happily, sitting next to April on one of the kitchen stools. "But it's way cuter, right?"

"I think Ben was right," Leslie shakes her head and makes to leave. "So, I'll be back to pick them up on Sunday. Don't worry about it this time, Andy. It's our turn."

"Sweet!" Andy exclaims. "Does that mean you'll watch ours when April's got a work trip?"

Leslie stares at them with her mouth open before turning around and bidding her kids a goodbye. Inside, Andy just laughs at the sudden escape and April joins in not much longer before groaning and slamming the tip of a pencil into the thin folder on the counter. While she continually makes a noise somewhere between intense agitation and grotesque pains, Andy scoots his stool closer and turns April so that her back faces him. Cracking his knuckles, twiddling his fingers like they always do in movies afterward, he settles his palms against her shoulder blades and gently rolls his hands up to the curves of her shoulders and kneads slowly along them with practiced ease. 

"C'mon, babe," Andy chuckles while working the fatty flesh of his palm along tense muscles. "You gotta relax! Stop working just for a little bit, okay? For me?"

"Andy..." she trails off, obviously annoyed at that little trick he just pulled. Despite that, she rolls her neck in response to his strong hands working in relaxing patterns. He's gotten used to giving massages, and likewise improved ever since that first one that almost froze her entire upper back.

"How about you take a break for, like, an hour and then you go back to work?" he requests, and the worry in his voice is what really does her in.

She sighs softly when he presses harder into her neck and she can feel a little relief in her tension. "Fine," she agrees, shrugging his hands away to spin around as best her stomach allows her to. "One hour."

"One hour," he repeats, leaning in to kiss her.

"Eww!" a small voice proclaims, causing April to break away with just a brief kiss and glance over at little Roberta scrunching her nose up at them. "Gross."

"Nuh uh!" Andy bites back with a wide grin before launching himself off his stool to wrap his arms around her and lift her up with an easy swing. "Agh, bug you're getting way too heavy."

"Andy!" April laughs, getting to her feet slowly and taking one of the bagel bites to nibble on over the course of her imposed break. "Getting boring out there?"

"Jack wants to play soccer with Sonia," Robbie says with a raucous giggle fit, fighting back Andy's hand attacking her stomach in tickling twirls of his fingers. "Daddy, stop!"

"What, you don't like soccer?" Andy laughs as he talks, faking his struggle to get at her belly only because Roberta keeps laughing and smiling. April just watches on, leaning back on the countertop and watching their little exchange. "What about hanging out with your sister?"

"Gross, she's a  _baby_!" Robbie almost shouts.

"She's three, bear," April moves over and is very happy that Andy's the one holding her. Every day passes and it seems like she gets another growth spurt. She fears for the teenage years. "You could go color with her! She's lonely."

"Sam is weird," the little girl whines, and April's smile falls. 

"C'mon, let's go play with her," Andy bounces her on his arm before turning to walk towards the shared room. "Mommy can-"

"Come with you, since the triplets are about to come eat all of our food," April's eyes widen as paper plates fly into place and three exhausted teenagers suddenly form to stools and take heapings of snacks onto their plates. "Or they already are-"

"Aunt April, didn't you say you were going to go buy broccoli for when we came over?" Stephen asks with an inquisitive look as he bites into the cooling miniature bagels. 

"Oh God, Ben really has ruined them," April whispers to Andy, who gives a sudden guffaw. "Yeah, well... we're poor. Blame your uncle for all the kids."

"I'm gonna have more sisters," Jack proudly points at her stomach and smiles, and April can only return it when it's so youthful and naively excited. "Hopefully they're cooler than the ones I have now-"

"Don't be rude," Sonia elbows him lightly in the side before biting into her food.

"Listen to Sonia, buddy," Andy says with a nod.

"Yeah, no being mean to your sisters. Especially when they're babies," April points out, walking over to grab her folder before leaving him a kiss on the cheek. "I hope you guys can handle him. His bedtime's-"

"At nine, we know," Sonia rolls her eyes and April can only smirk at how good she's getting at that. "I don't know why we can't stay at our house. We're fifteen!"

"What can I say, guys," April shrugs. "Your mom's kinda nuts."

She just smiles, ignoring the irony that _she's_ the one saying that, and leaves them to go back into the shared bedroom to find Sam sitting on her bed with a pile of poorly colored drawings. All of them are vaguely shaped people with colors spilling over the outlines and sharp, indistinct mishmashes of oversaturated coloration all over the papers she writes on, and when Andy lets Robbie down she immediately goes to a pile of unused paper and hops onto the bed with her sister. Grabbing a crayon, she looks down at her fresh page and starts scribbling. 

April eases herself next to Sam, looking over her shoulder at the work. One hand absentmindedly goes to playing with the long, golden brown of her hair she's thankfully inherited from Andy like Roberta, there's a moment of silence where she just sits there watching with her other hand resting on her bulging stomach. With the scribbling going on around her, and the silence around it, April only has the breaths of the four people in the room to listen to and the little sigh from Sam as she puts her crayon down and looks down at her work.

It's a little person and a much taller one, the shorter with a long bump where its stomach would be. 

"Huh, I didn't realize I'd gotten that fat," April traces the outlines of the picture with her finger. She always saw Sam doing the same and when she did it her daughter smiled so brightly, so April kept doing it. It was rare to pull those smiles, and for a three year old that scared April. "Why don't-"

"Ugh, why are they still here," Jack barges into the room, bumping the door into Andy's back. He was standing across the room, watching them on the bed. 

"Whoa, what're you talking about?" Andy asks, crouching down. 

"They're boring. They don't even want to go and put mud in people's mailboxes," Jack slumps his shoulders.

"The old mud-in-the-mailbox gag! Classic," Andy chuckles before April raises an eyebrow at him. "I mean, you shouldn't do that dude. It's mean. Remember what I said-"

"No pranks unless they're fun," he sighs.

"Oh, duh," Robbie shouts with a wide grin. Sam looks up, surprised. "I know what we can do."

"Oh boy-"

"We can put those little stickers daddy has all over their backpacks," she says with an enthusiasm for a good-hearted goof that makes April's chest blossom with warmth. 

"Too short term," April nods. "We gotta think of the long con. That's way funnier."

"And no mean stuff!" Jack points in the air, like he's just had an epiphany.

"Exactly," April agrees. She looks down at Sam. "Hey, baby, you wanna do the prank with us? It'll be fun."

Andy walks over and takes one of the bits of unused paper, leaning his back against the bed as he slides to the floor. April hands him a crayon while Sam decides and looks at her artwork, taking a glance at his rough sketches as the other two kids huddle beside him and snuggle in with him. With her daughter at her side, April doesn't really want to move. As fun as participating in a good old fashioned Ludgate-Dwyer family snuggle would be, right now Sam wanted to be alone with her mother from the looks of it. So, naturally, she's going to stay where she is.

While the others plot, the triplets must be causing all kinds of chaos outside that April just doesn't want to deal with. Or, more likely from the sounds of it, still bored and doing absolutely nothing. Sooner or later they'd ask to watch TV, and Andy's ingenious dual remote plan was going to be too good to pass up on. 

As the plot unravels, and Andy figures out how to distract them from looking at Robbie while she changes the channels randomly, April looks over at the picture Sam's finishing up. Beside the people that were obviously her and Andy, there were four little figures. A short one, a tall one with long hair, and two little ones with the same smile on their faces. Nowhere was a little girl with long brown hair, and April leans over to huddle closer to Sam.

"Hey, where are you?" she lifts up the picture to look at it, speaking quietly so no one else looks up and over at their little clique. "Huh, where are you in this picture?"

Sam just shrugs, and for a second April's heart falls apart. Then she has to remember to keep it together, and lays on her back taking Sam's hand and pulling her along for the ride. With another few dozens pieces of paper behind, she takes Sam's crayon and draws in the last little figure to match the rest of the family.

"There you go," she smiles. "Little Sam."

She still doesn't speak, and it's not that she  _can't_  but it's gotten more common where she clams up and refuses to talk to anyone. It used to be that April could get her to talk to her, but now she's much more reticent in saying anything to anyone.

"Hey," April nudges her softly with her shoulder. "I love you."

Sam turns and snuggles against April's arm without a word.

"So, when are we enacting the glorious plan?" Andy says, bouncing up onto his feet with the other two children following him.

"I think I'm gonna stay in here with Sam," April explains, her free arm running through her daughter's hair again. "You guys go and screw with them just a little bit. Only a little bit, and remember-"

"It's not mean, mom!" Robbie says loudly, running out of the room in an excited rush. Jack follows not long after, but Andy stays. 

He leans down and kisses April, then crosses over her to kiss Sam on the forehead. "Love you, Sammy," he says in a whisper, smiling at her. Sam giggles just a little bit, April twirling a strand of her hair but not moving. "Have fun with mom!"

When he leaves, Sam sighs and speaks in a quiet tone that's barely above a whisper. "Wanna sleep."

"You want me to go?" April asks in that same volume, tilting her neck to look down at Sam. 

"No," she mumbles.

April smiles and settles back, hoping that sleep doesn't fail her now. "Sounds good," she mutters back, tilting her head down to leave a kiss on top of her head and get into a more comfortable position. Sam's hand constantly touches her stomach, and April just leaves her hand next to hers for Sam to navigate around. It's strange, having kids that know she's having another kid and, still, it's maybe the coolest thing in her whole life. At least, next to falling asleep with her daughter huddled up next to her. That's pretty freaking cool too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't care if people mostly stopped giving a shit about this fic, these characters, or me or whatever. I'm going to try and resume my schedule next week (ooh look at the fancy description update!!!) so we'll see how that works out for everyone.
> 
> Poorly, is my guess.


	127. Like An Armor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today marks something kinda crazy: a return to a four day schedule!
> 
> This was requested multiple times in various ways as something on April + anxiety. I hope I've covered all of them.

People wonder why April is the way she is; and why she likes being weird, and for a long time she had no real answer for it. Some strange, intangible mess in her head was, and is, impossible to explain to people, especially people that simply don't care. The easiest thing to do is to  _be_ that crazy persona and wear it like an armor, happy to accept every glare and confused, sometimes disgusted, look because they would focus on the slanted words and angry comments rather than the chinks in the armor. 

Even to herself, it's difficult  _what_ to call it. Sometimes getting to work is a hassle just because she's thinking more about the idea that someone's going to talk to her and ask her questions, and potentially want  _real_ answers to them, instead of the reality which is always the same: day in, day out, there isn't much to speak of. It's not that it bothers her, and paradoxically she should be happy that no one says a word to her. In fact, contrary to her initial fear the isolation and sense of abandonment - that cold pick digging harshly into her stomach when she wonders if she should even bother with  _anything_ or with caring at all when people clearly didn't care - slide into place and worry at her; they gnaw, not dig. They claw and peck, puncturing little wound-marks into the vitals of her armor. 

Every day.

Every day, something different yet it's the same. She orders coffee and thanks the barista when he asks how she's doing. It was a silly mistake, but for  _hours_ after April keeps repeating it under her breath.

"Thank you," she repeats and closes her eyes, the embarrassing mishap a tiny little thing that literally  _does not_ matter but still repeats in her head. "Thanks. What the hell... _whatever,_ my day is fine. Not thanks."

She mutters to herself, trying to burn out that oddly empty sinking feeling in her chest. It didn't matter. That guy would forget about it because he's going to see however many other people in his day and hearing someone say something that stupid wasn't going to be his highlight. But maybe it would be? Maybe he'd tell all his friends about this stupid girl who said thank you, and they'd laugh and go tell their friends. It might end up coming back to some people, and then it might reach even Andy and then he'd think she's weird. Which he already does, of course, but he'd laugh at her. Obviously. 

Then her brain kicks into high gear and she builds herself back up. It last for only a moment though, rebuilding the reality and logic of the situation and thinking that no one actually cares and she  _shouldn't_ care whatsoever, before she thinks about what he'll say when he hears it and realizes she's crazy. Of course, April never tells him a word of this. Instead she just lets her weathered and battered, broken thick skin take over. It's easier that way, anyways.

She knows no one picks up on it, either way. Why would they? They all focus on themselves, like they should. The only time that April needs to be in the center of it all and bearing the weight of six or seven pairs of eyes that have no place on her is when she's being ridiculous; gross, sick, and weird. All of those things she can be if it means to dissuade them all from staring at her once more, those eyes not a hammer crushing the plates of her armor but little, thin blades slipping into joints where she's weakest and cutting her into pieces; and those shreds can't hold themselves up without the foundation of sarcasm and feigned disdain. 

There's one pair of eyes she accepts, and one she'll ask for and want, but he doesn't need to, nor should he. In reality, April knows to let him go because the more little peeks he takes into her mind and soul the more he'll see what she really is. It's a disgusting, pathetic thought and she knows it. She  _knows_ she's worth something - she's smart, independent, fun when she wants to be and Andy makes her want to be that, and good looking on top of it all. It should drive her mad, this indecision and confusion, but it all makes a peculiar sort of sense that is indescribable and she never wants to speak of, ever.

Yet she can't shake it, that feeling, and the strong despair-wrought grip it has on her. What happens when he sees her, truthfully? Does he run? Does he stay? Will he be there to smile and laugh when she's bared wide open, standing with those plates on the ground and touching his hand to the real heart beating underneath it all? 

The question is too daunting to ask and wonder, so April tucks it neatly away. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Please stop trying to talk to me," April hisses, closing the door to  _their_ bedroom with a loud slam. 

"But, honey-"

"I said  _stop_ ," she says hoarsely, "and please, babe, just... stop."

"You said you'd go-"

"I'm not going to the stupid bar to see your stupid band, okay?" she interrupts once more in a cruel lash, regretting her words the moment they leave her mouth. "I didn't mean that."

"Oh, yeah. Totally, of course," Andy says in that almost pouting voice, disappointed but for some reason natural. Almost like he expects it. "Um, d'you wanna go out somewhere else then?"

"No, it's your... ugh, why is this door still closed," she complains, pulling it open and sitting back down on the bed. "Go to your concert, Andy. You really want to. I know you do! So just go, all right? I can read or something."

"Why don't you wanna go? You said you liked drinking and being my groupie," Andy says with a sly smile, walking over and sitting next to April. She simply sits there, listless and thinking. "You don't have to drink... you don't, y'know, have to be my groupie, either-"

"Shut up," April laces it with a little more anger than she first intends, but it comes out rightly when he shrugs his shoulders. "Don't be like that. I just... don't wanna go, what's so hard to understand about that?"

Andy looks down and his eyebrows do that annoying thing when he's actually thinking where they bump into each other and meet on his brow. "I dunno, you're just... um, are you feeling okay? Like, are you sick?" Andy scratches his chin and then shakes his head. "Never mind. That was dumb. You're doing awesome, you're great."

"Why d'you ask?" April whispers it, unsure where his sincere worry comes from. Really, she wonders where he  _came_ from at all: he's kind and caring and everything she pretends she doesn't want to be.

"I'm not sure. I sorta... get a weird feeling when you're like this. Something feels off," his face is marked with worry and jumps around emotions from worry that he's saying the wrong thing until she gives him a small smile, confusion like usual, and then that welcoming warmth coloring his eyes. "Are you okay?"

For a moment she tackles the question. This is really her chance to say something, and to finally, truly, open up. Not that she is closed off to him anymore, but giving this secret over and letting him touch the well-hidden, brittle fragments of her exterior isn't to be taken lightly. She's never done it for  _anyone_ , but she thinks that maybe Andy could handle it. Then her mind tickles with a thought that he'll give up, and that she might be walking the line too far and quickly, only to realize that his words aren't meaning the same thing. How could she show her face to him when he knows those scars? She'd be broken and lost in his eyes, and it doesn't matter how many passes her thoughts give to that and realize that he would be caring and considerate because there's a primal fear and intense, animalistic urge to run and hide from it all.

"Yeah," she lies, boldfaced and without a tremble in her voice. It's well-practiced, and her face doesn't show the intense, real and physical, turmoil in her stomach joined by her mind's somersaults to justify the feeble rebuke. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Then, something passes over his features. If April knew how to read him - and she did, honestly, by this point - it was different, and unusual. There wasn't an open question for her, or any blind happiness. Instead, something about his face felt distant and weakly submitting to the idea that she's okay.

"Um, okay, we should totally hang out then," Andy suggests, smiling brightly and washing away any sense of that prior emotion. 

"Go to your show," she says half-heartedly, honestly thinking about him being right beside her and asking her questions she doesn't want to answer, stroking her hair and making her more comfortable than ever, and what she might tell him. "Just go. I'll be fine. What, d'you think I'm gonna cheat on you or something?"

"What? No," he laughs, apparently thinking the idea as incredulous as he should. 

"Then go," she mumbles, "and I'll read or go online and watch foreign traffic accidents for six hours. I'll be fine."

"You sure?" 

"Babe, just go," she chuckles without a sense of laughter in her meek noise.

"All right, if you say so," he leans over and kisses her lips quickly, barely making contact but it's so warm and a brief reminder she loves all too much. "Love you tons."

"Yeah, you too," she nods.

"Seriously, I mean it," he says as he makes his way out of the bedroom towards the car already packed with his gear, stopping to brush the door back and forth with it in his grip and staring at her. "I love you more than Pearl Jam and plaid and beer put together, and dogs. And guitars. Music, and, uh... nachos! I love you more than all of that and-"

"I get it," April stands and crosses the distance to him. "I love you that much too. More."

Without giving him a chance to answer, April stands high on her toes and kisses him deeper than before. Palm flush with the wall to her left, she watches him leave and the moment the door closes with her still there her heart sinks and the thought creeps up: 

_Why didn't you just go?_

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Work the next day is easy enough, at first. Andy came back home a little drunker than she expected, but it just makes him handsy when he's that gone and she  _really_ likes that. Even at her lowest she can't deny that it feels nice to be wanted so furiously and repeatedly, but it does make her miss being able to just go out and enjoy the night with him and get just as sloshed as he was. Now, though, she just wipes away the tiredness in her eyes and the weak feeling of grasping again at sleep, looking blankly at her laptop and wondering what it'd be like to just sit under her desk all day.

For some strange reason, Leslie keeps asking if she's okay. So what, she had said she loved her? That doesn't mean that Leslie gets to baby her constantly, and even worse when she actually has work to do and shouldn't be bothering herself with April's stupid grumbles and overall boredom. 

Then it gets worse, much much worse.

Andy steps into the office, and it's usual enough. There isn't anything to indicate something weird other than maybe the way he looks at her but April's so tired - she stays up so late nowadays, and can barely even find the sleep anymore until it's around five in the morning already and she needs to be up in three hours - that she just sits there awkwardly when he moves a chair in front of her desk and  _those_ eyes meet her. The same ones from the night before. April should have known then, but Leslie appears as if out of nowhere beside her and it's all so enclosed and claustrophobic she wants to leave. For some reason the intense fixation on her by two of the only people she actually cares about is worse than being ridiculed or feared by her workmates.

"April-"

Leslie starts but she wants to get away already. It's like an odd tickling at her hands and feet, like she wants to grab her keys and run out of the building all at once just to get away from the scrutiny.

"What?" she interrupts quickly, her voice coming out shrill, "I mean... what's up?"

"Babe, I talked a lot with Leslie and... um, are you sure you're okay?" he asks in that small voice that's looking for the easy way out because Andy doesn't want to think of her like this. Obviously that's what it is. He wants her to be this perfect person he's put on the pedestal and not who she actually is. "It's okay, we made sure everyone's gone."

Looking around the room, she  _does_ notice that Ron and Jerry have left. 

"April, it's okay. You can talk to us," Leslie sits down on her desk, only partially blocking her line of sight with Andy. "We've...  _Andy_ is worried about you."

"About what?" she sneers, faltering the moment she actually looks in his eyes. She can feel that first strap give way, and the little eyes cut past the clothes underneath. They reach into her skin. "What? About what, Andy? Why are you worried?"

"You're... I dunno, distant?" he looks up at Leslie, who nods back at him. "You always like hanging out with me and going to shows, and drinking at bars, and now you're, like-"

"Boring?" April tilts her head and his eyes take on the most innocent, fearful light in as quick a moment as the snap of her fingers. She already knows the answer to her question.

"No! Oh my God, no babe... I'm just scared," he admits and looks side-to-side. "I told Leslie-"

"Andy, no," she sighs, crossing her arms and scooting her chair further back by barely an inch.

"I told her about how you tried to get better once, and about the pills," Andy confesses, a look of shame on his face that snaps yet another clasp holding her thick, steely exterior in place.

"What did you tell her?" April demands, not bothering to look at Leslie. He broke her trust, and she needs to know what was so deserving of  _that_ crime. "Andy!"

Her loud cry jerks him up. "I'm so sorry, babe. I told her about the panic attacks and everything," he puts his head in his hands. "I'm the worst husband on the planet."

Leslie puts her hand on his shoulder and gives April a hard look. "He told me all of that because he cares, April," she tries to tell her but the betrayal is still burning red in her chest and making April want to scream, fight him, and cry all at once. "I practically had to beat it out of him. Well, not literally. That would be cruel, but he did come to talk to me and I basically got him to tell me. Forced him, kind of. Maybe a little."

"I don't wanna talk about this," April mutters, clutching her arms tighter and now looking away from the both of them. It  _hurts_ but she doesn't know why. She wants to tell them, she really truthfully does, but the fear that giving up the lie and letting it all sit plain as day for them to see is too much. "Please, don't make me."

"We don't want to make you do anything, April," Leslie says calmly, her voice soothing and honeyed but still worrisome. 

"We love you," Andy adds, "and we want you to be happy. I wanna see you smile again, so bad babe. I mean, you do it obviously but I wanna see you go out with me and smile and I can say, hell yeah that's my wife."

April tosses it in her head once or twice. She lets the thought sit there and articulate itself into speech, and a potential argument that she wonders about and ponders for a moment before discarding as a waste of time, before she just shakes her head. The conclusion is simple: freedom is difficult and even if she does love and trust them both, the microcosm of possible derision and loathing tells her to clam up. Shut, Ludgate.  _Shut. Up._

She can't help it, so she recedes further back like she's not ready to leave her armor yet. Here he is now, and he's not alone, with his arms open and his smile wide, and she still can't seem to drop her pretensions to let him listen to her and allow herself to say things and divulge tiny, insignificant worries. Honestly, they don't matter and yet to her they stab at her and weaken her every moment of every day of every week, for every hour and every minute of each month before the years are all this indecipherable mess of homogenized  _fear_. Of what? She's never been sure, just that she's afraid of it. Fear of the very things that make her afraid, and of the possibilities of every word and choice she makes. 

"Babe, why did you tell Leslie?" April asks and means to sound indignant, and annoyed, but all that comes out is a weak, tired voice.

"We want you to get better," he reminds her with a soft tone, "and she's way smarter than me. You couldn't take the meds anymore, and you said you didn't like what they did to you."

"They made me... different," she nods. 

"Yeah, and we know how you can get help without them," Leslie says with her hand on her thigh and a careful, furrowed brow. "There are people who can help. We can get people to help talk to you."

April's pretty sure she hears all of it, but she can't stop staring into the empty space beside Andy. Every second they're huddled back here like this strikes her anew with a fear that someone will walk in. Every bit of her protections slide away with those thoughts, and before long her eyes are wide and she can feel quick breaths that stop instantly for the blank space in front of her. Staring, simply staring. 

"April, I'm here," a thick, deep voice tells her and she turns to see Andy crouching beside her. His hand slips into hers, all sweaty and irritable, and she finally breaks the stare with the nothingness in front of her. "Hey, babe, I love you. I'm here, and I'm sorry for telling Leslie but... I'm so scared. I want you to get better."

She can't come up with the words, confused why he would bother and trying to force back the urge to vomit and tell him to stop bothering.

"It doesn't even have to work out, but can you try it?" Leslie offers the compromise like it's some sort of trial run. 

"M-Maybe," April stutters, still tightly balled up on herself because those metals and chains and links of her dead-eyed, bored persona are all gone now. "Maybe."

"You can try it with me first!" Andy says brightly, and she feels that need to cry again. That would draw too much ire, and too much attention, so April bottles it back up for later.  _Way_ later. "Just say stuff to me and I can wear goofy glasses and make you sit on a couch. Then you can just say what you want and if you like how it feels we...  _you_ can try it out for real!"

There it is.

She's sitting in that chair, the color of her blood running crimson along his hands as he digs further and further for her and still he smiles. He  _wants_ to go deeper, and to see what secrets are in those red and black chambers. Every ounce of life pouring through her is something he wants to know about, and understand, and still he smiles. Instead of a madman with a lust for her pain, he's warmth and hope and he just carves out an alcove where she can safely be and all those anxieties can be stripped clean. 

April knows it isn't that easy. Hell, it might never work. To her, however, the fact that he's sitting next to her in the waiting room a week later and holding her hand while a million nerves and questions flare up in excited, eager frustration is enough. The way he lifts her up and spins her around when she says she'll go back the next week is worth it. Andy's feverish kisses after, and his celebration with beer and cheeseburgers, when she says she's trying a very mild prescription along with her therapy two months down the line are all worth it. It's all enough because, now, she doesn't need that armor so much anymore. It's nice to see, every once and a while, and to remember that it's there and part of her but with him she no longer needs its surrogate hide to close herself off from him. For others, she still needs something. The crazy, batshit, off-the-wall antics will stay because they're fun, first of all, and because they help deflect things she still isn't ready to consider. 

A year later, and she no longer needs the now minimal prescription. Every week she goes to therapy, though, and every week it's like a weight being dumped off of her back. When she returns home, April can recount it all to Andy earnestly and let him know when she's uncomfortable in public and they need to go take a cab home instead of public transport. Even when she can't go inside a restaurant and he needs to order takeout for them, like always, he's there and it doesn't hurt anymore. April just knows what it is, and knows that it's going to be a part of her. She will fight it, and try to stop it from ruining the simplest joys she loves, but she can't let it go. It'll never leave, and just like that armor still hanging up waiting to be worn despite the flaws and imperfections in its craft so does April keep this part of her life not openly shown, but adorned within herself to remember and fight. Never to forget, but never to let it burrow and worm itself into her again.


	128. Just a Hug

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by robertdoc on tumblr.
> 
> Set post-Recall Vote. One of those "not really April/Andy so please don't hurt me" chapters!

It was the first thing that jumped out to her when Leslie came in all  _beaten_ and sloppily dressed, hair a mess, and with those dead eyes that were everything she isn't. All the way from her house where she could have stayed to snuggle with Andy all night, but instead knew she was needed elsewhere. Maybe her contribution wasn't going to be winning Leslie a reelection, or even going back in time to kill everyone who got recalled just to say she could do it, but April felt compelled to do something.

So of course she called Leslie in the middle of the night when regular people would be asleep, making up some ridiculous story for her to come to the gas station just a few blocks away from her house. April waits outside by the huge freezers, arms crossed and tapping her foot impatiently. Was Leslie really going to believe that story? The SUV pulling up and the short figure booking it towards her was evidence enough.

When she stepped into the light, Leslie still looked completely dragged under the events of the last few days but her eyes were fierce with purpose this time. That at least made April's job a little easier, not to mention it looked like Leslie had showered at some point since earlier. For once, Ben was good for something.

"Where is he? Never mind, c'mon let's get you home," Leslie grabbed her hand, trying to pull her from the sidewalk. "April! Let's go, we both know you're as physically capable of handling this as Tom-"

"Leslie, stop," April murmured, pulling back and discovering that she really  _couldn't_ stop herself from being pulled around. "Leslie, stop!"

"What? Do you  _want_ to be kidnapped? April, I know you think it's funny but think of how much we'll miss you! Andy-"

"There's no kidnapping," April laughed, watching Leslie's face turn into a mask of disappointment for a moment before regaining that motherly composure. At least, in that, April saw her resolve break. "Besides, you don't have to tell me how much Andy would miss me. Hell, he was practically crying when I told him I was going to meet with you."

"Why didn't you just tell me? I was worried sick," Leslie tilted her head, her voice a little disgusted. "April, seriously. Seriously, April. April, seriously, don't do that again."

"Leslie," April whined, "you wouldn't have come out of your house and I needed to do this in private."

"Do what? Look, if you're gonna tell me you and Andy are secretly murderers whose final kill is going to be a grand going out scheme on a train, you can count me in because if there's-"

"Oh my God," April groaned loudly, rolling her eyes. "Please, just listen to me." She waited for Leslie to say a word, crossing her arms and pouting her lips just a little. When Leslie didn't seem to be arguing, April sighed and continued. "Okay, so... this recall stuff sucks. Which, yeah, that's a crappy way to describe it but it does. It sucks."

"Yes, it does," Leslie agreed.

"And you, Leslie Knope, are an awesome person who doesn't deserve to have that happen to you," April said slowly, looking down and away from Leslie's eyes because this is impossible to say to her face. "You're one of my best friends, but I could also kill you whenever. You said it yourself, I'm a murderer... but you probably don't deserve it. So, I'm gonna do this now because this sucks and I wish it could be better."

"What-"

April darted across the grimy gas station parking lot and slipped her arms around Leslie's in a tight embrace. Nestling her head in Leslie's shoulder, intent on making this as close as she possibly can to get the message across that she meant this hug, she squeezes just a little. Leslie made a soft noise, somewhere between a sigh and a coo, before returning it. They sat there for a few more moments, silent and swaying just a bit with Leslie tapping her back like she really needed this. Her arms were tightly holding on, and April knew she needed it but couldn't find herself just up and doing it in public with people  _watching_.

"So, this recall stuff sucks," April mumbled with her chin on Leslie's shoulder. 

"Yeah, it really does," Leslie returned. 

"So..."

"But, I've got the greatest friends and, my dream may be totally dead but at least I've got you guys," she noted, finally moving out of the hug. "Friends whom I love very dearly, and am beginning to see the beautiful seeds that I planted starting to come to-"

"Ew, no I don't like this anymore," April said with a half-hearted grimace before Leslie gave her that no-nonsense, pleading look. "Okay, keep stroking my ego."

"I'll stop, but first I want to say thank you for caring," Leslie said low, quiet like April liked to hear, "and I love you very much."

"I love you too," April answered in that same tone, moving forward to give Leslie another hug. This time, it was brief. "So, yeah. I can't get you back in office, but I wanted you to know I cared since it's kinda hard to just show that when other people are around."

Leslie gave her a slightly taken aback look, and it didn't hit her until she had said it that April was being open and honest here. No dripping sarcasm or deeply nested ironic flair, just honest and open. Without saying another word, afraid what the hell she might accidentally say now, April ran towards her car parked behind the gas station and sped off back to her house. She could be this open with Andy, and she'd probably have to in order to explain what she was doing at this hour not in his arms like she would have really liked. Still, she had things to do and he would understand. He'd probably call her cute again, which wasn't _so_ bad when they were alone.


	129. People Are Terrible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested as "April vs. PTA moms." 
> 
> This is another case of the "Oh God, that's fantastic I must write it now!" So, yeah. Then it turned into kid fluff, so... I guess? Whatever, I think it's cute.

"Wait... you  _want_ to go talk to them?" Andy asks, incredulous but smiling wide. "I thought you hated this stuff."

"Yeah, well Robbie's been hanging out with one of the millions of white suburbanites so I figured I may as well learn to not vomit when I see his mom," April shrugs, putting one hand on her stomach instinctively. "Besides, when I'm pregnant I get sappy. Maybe I'll, ugh, like one of them."

"God, you are never hotter than when you're cute. Except when you're creepy... ooh, how about both?" he wiggles his eyebrow and she smirks.

"Well, they might be witches. I might be able to join their coven," April nods and looks back over her shoulder briefly. "I don't think I'm super up for sacrificing my firstborn though. Thoughts?"

"What? Babe, no-"

"I'm kidding. Andy, I'm kidding," April shoves him playfully, neatly transitioning to grabbing his collar to bring him down for a kiss. Honestly, one of the best parts of being pregnant was the  _insane_ sex drive she got, and not that it was miniscule before but when there's kids around all the time sometimes she's just so beat that things are a little tamer than usual. "Seriously, I'm just gonna go talk to them. Besides, you've gotta go help set up stuff for the play tomorrow right?"

"Oh right. Babe, you're amazing. You are so smart," he kisses her on the cheek and runs across the wide auditorium-slash-gymnasium (no way in hell is April calling it a fucking gymnatorium).

Meanwhile, April takes her glass over to the table where the almost cliquish group of mothers sits. She walks across the gymnasium, again used to her ankles wanting to give in and her back just demanding to be allowed one day's break, towards the little poker table. One of them stares at her, Margaret or something was her name. Margie? Maggie? Whatever, April really doesn't care that much. To be honest, she always wanted to be a part of a coven. A little blood sacrifice, as long as it had nothing to do with her kids, would be okay by her.

Pulling one of the little plastic chairs out from the table, April hates the feeling of  _squishing_ into it but only stares down the black-haired Margarine until the other woman's weak glare dies off. Taking a sip from her water, she leans forward to put her glass on the table and still no one's said a word.

"So... what are you gals talking about?" April dons her best bland, stereotypically generic American accent with wide eyes and a hand on her stomach still. It's really a habit now, and after three already she's picked up quite a few. "Anything juicy?"

"Um... well, we were actually just discussing why we allowed your husband to destroy half of the props," Magdalene looks over across the floor, April turning to look at Andy draped in tinsel and running around with Jack, Robbie, and three other kids that aren't theirs. To be honest, Andy with that many kids around him is a strangely heartwarming sight, and he's  _so_ happy.

"That stuff's like a dollar, I'll pay for it if we need more. Seriously, look how happy those kids are," she returns in that slowly failing accent that somehow got caught up in a Southern drawl at the end there. April's accents were always suspect at best, anyways. "Besides, it'll tire him out and I'm already beat. You know what I mean, girls?"

There it is again, that bizarre twang. It's impossible to mistake, but April just runs with it. Whatever, Midge sucks. That much April knows.

"Ugh, I'm always beat. I've got this  _cute_ gardener who's... hmm, well it's a little too racy for this table," the blonde one on the right that April's trying to get on better terms with says. "How about you, April?"

"How about me what?" April grimaces, letting that twinge of confusion take over. She's not stupid - she knows this lady's fucking her probably underaged gardener - but now she's just uncomfortable.

"Oh, you can't land any boys anymore?" Mable says with a wry smile.

"First off, I like men, Molly," April says with a distinctly poisonous taste in her mouth. "Secondly, unlike you my husband's an amazing lay and I actually give a crap about him. Because you're terrible."

"It's Nancy," the black-haired woman corrects. Where the hell April got all the M's from she doesn't know, but now she doesn't know if she wants to bother with these people.

"I don't really care," April shrugs. "Since I know you've all got awful husbands or wives or whatever, I know you won't care about me asking this: when do the rituals start?"

They just look at each other and then at April before Nancy speaks up. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, so you're more of a Stepford kind of deal," April nods, understanding now.

"No...?"

"Wait, so you guys aren't, like, cannibals at least?" April asks with hope in her voice, sitting up a little more.

"No."

"I'm not gonna go back to your house and find people strung up in the basement?"

"What the f-"

"What about, like, one murder that you have to cover up and now you're all in a blood pact never to tell your horrible secret?"

"No!"

"No corpses? No blood? No witches? Ugh, you're all so boring  _and_ you're a bunch of dumb cheating idiots," April stands up and walks away in a huff, annoyed at it all. Walking over to where Andy is running around with a large, paper tree under his arm and Jack in the other, she taps Roberta's shoulder and takes her hand.

Those women were all stupid, but now they might be afraid of her. Maybe  _she_ could start the next PTA clique and have them all under her fist as the slaves to her every whim, terrified she might kill any one of them or offer them to some unknown blood god. Then Andy comes through the double doors, Jack running beside him with that childish glee all over his face and little Sam sitting on his shoulders. Since no one could babysit for them, Andy figured he would be able to handle them. Obviously, April's going to help and love it and she  _loves_ being around her children - and seeing them so happy around Andy confirms it every single day - but there's something comforting in being able to just ask him to take care of them for a few hours while she does just about nothing.

"Hey babe, how were the parents teaching adults people or whatever," he asks, Sam's ankles in his hands and tickling her feet absentmindedly. Little squeals, giggles, emanate and April grins at the sight of her daughter - all frizzy hair and that cute little blue dress - smiling. "Were they witches?"

"No, they're just stupid old people," she slumps her shoulders.

"Mom, you're old," Jack pipes up, looking up at her.

"Yeah, you're  _old_ ," Roberta repeats, laughing.

"Yeah, but mommy and daddy are cool old people," April reminds them with a tilt of her head. "Who else lets their kids dig up their whole yard to make a mud pit?"

"And who else helps their kids dig it up?" Andy nods, a huge grin spreading its way across his face. "So, um, you wanna just sit down for a bit babe?"

"What? I can do something, right?"

"No," Roberta stands in front of her with her finger pointing towards her belly. "Babies can't get hurt! Daddy said so."

"Did he?" April raises an eyebrow, but honestly she's happy she's not going to do anything - part boredom, part being actually tired.

"I mean, you can do whatever. Obviously, I mean, duh-"

"Well, your sisters need to sleep for a bit, guys. So, I think I'm gonna sit here and watch you set stuff up for tomorrow," April gently lowers herself down with the imagined help of Roberta and Jack. As long as they thought they were doing something - mostly just touching her legs - then it's fine by her. Besides, it's stupidly cute. "I'll take Sam, babe."

He lets her down into April's arms, where she quickly snuggles her close to her chest and kisses the top of her head. Looking down with a small smile, Sam laughs again and April just can't get enough of that sound. Jack's laugh was great when he was a few years younger, and Robbie always had it, but something about the sheer  _joy_ in Sam's makes her heart flutter against her ribs. It's a feeling she won't ever want to give up, and April dearly hopes that the twins' laughter is just as addictive.

At least that was way cooler than whatever bullshit those crazy people - seriously, why marry someone that could even suck at all? If anything, April feels bad for them. She gets her family, Andy, and never really sees the need for anything else. It only reminds April of one thing: people are truly terrible.


	130. Four to One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested as a siblings drabble focused on Samantha; "Four times they did something special for her, and one time she did something special for them."
> 
> Yay!

"Wait, why can't we get a cat?" Jack asked one day out of the blue. 

"What?" April closed her eyes, groggy and barely awake, unsure where that even came from.

"Sam said she can't have a cat," he explained quietly, "and I wanna know why we can't get a cat?" 

"This isn't the conversation I need to be having a six in the morning, dude," April massaged her temples and opened her eyes, wondering why the hell he was such a morning person. Neither of them were, even remotely, and he always got up at five to run.

"We should get her a cat."

April took out a coffee cup from the cupboard and walked over to their little Keurig. Pressing the small cup, she took a deep inhale of the bitter liquid pouring into the cup. She really didn't need to be doing this at this hour. 

"C'mon, mom, it'll make her so happy," he whined.

April turned her head and he had  _that_ pleading look that she knew so well from so many years with Andy. "You think?" she asked evenly, because April knew it would. Really, the only reason April would  _want_ a cat is because Sam kept slipping in hints, as subtly as she could, about one.

"Well, it wouldn't hurt?" he shrugged. "I dunno."

"Did she ask you to talk to me?" April thought about getting sugar and creamer out but just didn't have the energy, instead sipping the black coffee and appreciating the bite. 

"No," he shook his head. April already knew the answer, anyways. 

It wasn't that April was distant from her children, and far from it in all actuality. She went to every football game she could for Jack, and she tried to be interested In Robbie's love for science but  _God_ that was difficult, and the twins were tiny, monstrous versions of herself as a middle schooler. Sam, however, was a quiet, soft kid who withdrew really early and didn't seem to want to come out so April knowingly spent a little more time being around her. Whether that was reading, watching her paint, or just lounging around in the living room with her, April liked the settled atmosphere with her daughter. Besides, when she wasn't busy with work the only things April wanted to be around were her kids and Andy.

"I'll think about it," April nodded, taking another sip and grimacing at the taste. Still, it  _was_ working. "D'you want a cat?"

"Not really," Jack shrugged. 

April smiled, walking over to give him a kiss on the cheek before heading to her home office to get an early start on something. Or, more likely, ignore her work to mindlessly browse and wait for Andy to get up for a little morning rendezvous when they'd have time alone. 

Hours later, on the way back from a grocery trip April took a brief detour to the little animal shelter she knew was just a block away from the store.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"You should try out for a sport," Robbie suggested brightly, lying on Sam's bed and bouncing up and down on it with giggles every time she launched herself in the air.

"Ew," Sam retorted, picking up a pencil and quickly sketching out the wireframe for the next figure on the page. "Why are you in my room?"

"Because... dad said I'm supposed to watch you," she bounced her hands on the bed once more before settling into Sam's pillow.

"Please stop messing with my stuff," she requested, looking up from her sketch for a second before sighing and returning. "What're mom and dad even doing anyways?"

"Said something about going on a date," Robbie grimaced and Sam let out the same noise of disgust. 

"At least they're not, going out on a date-" Sam made air quotes, shivering in discomfort, "in the house anymore."

Robbie bounced on her bed again, and Sam winced again. She didn't like people in her room in the first place, and she didn't like that someone was on her bed either even if it was her sister. There were some boundaries she liked to have, and usually they were kept up, but her skin started to tingle and itch and she feared breaking out in hives from this.

"Can you please leave me alone?" Sam said in a soft voice, griming up her thumb by smudging the graphite mixture on the paper. "Please, Bobby?"

For a second she just got a confused look and then that wide smile, the one that looked eerily like her dad's, and Robbie hopped up from the bed and closed the door behind her as she made her way out of the room. 

"I'll let you know when the pizza's here!" she heard her sister shout from outside.

Sam just smiled to herself and went back to drawing, suddenly alleviated from the strange, crushing feeling.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Stirring a glass of lemonade, still not convinced the sugar's dissipated properly because both her dad and Robbie are impatient when it came to these things, Sam glanced out the sliding door at her mother relaxing in the sun and reading a book while two monsters attacked the torn up yard. Walking back to her room with her drink, she brushed aside the mewling cat on her desk chair to sit down. Not long after, the large ginger leapt onto her lap and curled himself up there.

"You are so  _fat_ , Jasper," she chuckled, scratching his chin before clicking on her lamp.

Without her hand even touching a pen, the door bursts open behind her and Jasper skitters off and under her bed. Turning around, one of the twins entered with clean hands as the other dropped came in with a shoebox and much more mud and dirt covering her arms.

"What are you two doing in here? Get out-"

"We wanted to show you what we're putting in Amy Hamperdon's locker tomorrow," Lucy spoke up, closing the door with an even face. 

"Look what we caught," Victoria said monotonously, opening the shoebox to quickly show the large spider, dirt, and various worms enclosed within. "You said she hated spiders right?"

Sam remembered saying something about that the first time she came home from high school after being bullied. It was annoying more than anything, but she really didn't need anyone to know about it. Somehow, the twins knew. They always knew weird things that no one ever told them, and once her mother gave them a ouija board for a joined birthday present and  _terrified_ their friends at a sleepover. Their friends and dad, who thought it would be funny but ended up running, yelling, to their parents' bedroom never to return. 

So, yeah, they knew about the girl that no one really liked but still bullied and talked down to everyone. Most people could just deal with it, but for whatever reason Sam never got used to that.

"Yeah," Sam nodded.

Without another word, and not needing one, the twins left her alone and Jasper eventually found his way back into her lap. She might never say it, but Sam  _loved_ those terrifying little fiends.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"C'mon, Sammy," Andy walked her out of the bedroom, rolling her still on her desk chair while April held her hands over their daughter's eyes. "We gotta big surprise!"

"Andy!"

"Oh, crap. Forget you heard that," he laughed.

There were things that Andy loved in his life, and that was basically everything. Really, he was so full of excitement and joy for everything that he assumed his kids would be exactly the same. That wasn't it though, because the  _kind_ of love he had for them was beyond the ordinary. It was beyond, even, what he had for April. They were the single most important thing he'd ever know, and their happiness was tied for that, so when he heard Jack and Robbie conspiring for Sam's birthday it nearly made him cry.

Then again, the same thing happened when he heard that the twins dumped dirt and creepy crawlies in a bully's locker a few weeks before. All it took was knowing that his kids weren't miserable - and that time he went to go get a drink and heard Sam sniffling to herself in her room and refusing to answer him was the single most heartbreaking night  _ever_ \- and he became a bright ray of sunshine. Well, brighter. He would never lose his love for April, and that became even more sincere when they discussed and talked about and she agreed to be the mother of his  _freaking children_ , but it was different with them and in a totally awesome way.

"Mom!" Sam protested but by the time they made it to the living room April had already removed her hands.

"Surprise!" the remaining children shouted, and April and Andy ran out in front of her to join in. "Happy Birthday!"

In front of her was a small pizza box and little stack of boxes. One rather large, wrapped box was at the bottom of the pile and she just glanced down at all of it then up to them.

"What's this?" she pointed at the pizza.

"We got you that gross vegan pizza you like," Andy propped open the lid for her and he was right, inside was the heavily decadent pepper and mushroom monstrosity she loved. "That was my idea. I'm an awesome dad, I know. Uh, and we all got you a cool present."

"And your brother and sisters have a present to give you. Don't they?" April spoke up, elbowing Jack lightly in the side.

"Yeah, we, uh, got Jasper a new bed," he scratched his cheek and pointed at the large, fluffy padding she must have missed before. "And we promise not to be mean to him anymore."

"I didn't raise my kids to hate animals," April said with a small smile. 

"No you didn't, babe," Andy grinned as he crossed the distance to stand next to her and give her a brief kiss. "You're such an awesome mom, by the way..."

"Dad!" Sam interrupted loudly when he went in for another kiss and it was not brief whatsoever. 

"Oh, yeah, um... sorry guys," he laughed, touching the back of his neck and taking to just holding April with his arm over her shoulders. "So, do you like your party?"

She took one look around at everything and then simply nodded at them. The kids watched her open an easel, more supplies, and the vegan pizza back to her bedroom before returning to their usual corners and rooms.

 

 

* * *

 

When the kids move out of the house, and years have passed so far and the gray had fully set into Andy's beard and hair (and April found she was a  _very_ big fan of that look) with April's following suit not long after, they cuddle on the couch and stare at the TV. Or, rather, above it. 

There, an old picture hung and sat framed for everyone who passed through to enjoy. Usually it was just April and Andy, though sometimes when Jack or Roberta visited they'd look at it for a while before going back to whatever they were there for and Lucy liked to take dozens of pictures of it from various angles. Vicky just thought it was kind of bland but didn't dare say anything about it. Sam, however, never really saw it. Ever since she dropped out of school, she rarely paid visits back home. It was sad, but April got calls every few months that reminded her that she was alive and well and having the time of her life travelling across the country.

Together, April's head in his shoulder and Andy kissing the top of her head, they look at the little family portrait - of _all_ of them - Sam painted not long after her fifteenth birthday. It was always a relaxing way to spend the night, at least when they were too sleepy for anything else.


	131. Let's Get Divorced

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested as the "Divorce and remarry" plot from S6 that never got touched on in S7. If they're not going to show us what happened, I have to at least write a little!

"Oh, we could do it at my mom's house! She's got this big field and it'd be super cute," Andy said to April enthusiastically, lounging around in the Parks department at her desk. "or we could do it at night and you could wear all black and that really thick makeup that you know I-"

"Gotcha," she nodded from his lap, chuckling. They were discussing their plans to divorce each other only to immediately get married again. The first marriage was awesome, and they were still super happy being married so wouldn't a double ceremony make it _twice_ as cool? That's Andy's thought process at least, and April's too enamored in hearing his ideas to care. "That could be fun."

"Maybe we could have a wedding like Leslie's and Orin could make you a dress-"

"Out of roots and a mourning gown," she offered with a grin, Andy nodding and returning it happily. "That'd be pretty cool, but I don't want Jerry there. That was a mistake last time, by the way."

"So is it the field idea?" Andy asked with a hopeful glint in his eyes, pulling her closer with his arm wrapped around her waist. 

"Maybe," she pursed her lips and trailed a finger down from his chin to his chest. "You do like when I wear all that makeup. Besides, we can pretend to haunt your mom's house after."

"You are super-"

"What are you two doing?" Leslie interrupted, the two of them so caught up in the other to notice that she had been standing there for a solid ten seconds.

Leslie even had to put up with the conversation just before. She didn't really know if she could take too many times where they jumped each other at work, torn between smiling and sighing because  _okay, that's public indecency_ , but when she spoke April turned her head and leered at her. Andy looked blankly, his hand still moving carefully along April's waist. 

"Oh, nothing, just talking about divorcing my awesome wife," Andy explained happily, staring into April's eyes for a moment - nodding when she did because he had no idea what else to do when she bit her lip like that - before turning to Leslie once again. "Why, what's up?"

"Um, wow. You guys are... wait, what's happening?" Leslie spoke quickly. She took a defensive position, squinting in confusing and then sadness. She alternated between the two as she mumbled something about  _crazy_ and  _love_ and  _divorce_. 

"We are getting divorced, Leslie," April repeated, snuggling closer to Andy.

"Then we're getting married again! Like, right away," Andy chuckled.

"Yep, that's the plan," she nudged his chin with her nose and Andy turned his face to meet her in a quick, giggly kiss. "What's hard to understand about that?"

Leslie's face regained its normal color as she sighed. "Oh, you guys are just getting your vows renewed," she said with a small laugh. "You had me going there for a second."

"Wait you can do that?" Andy craned his neck away from April who only pouted at the separation. 

"Yeah, but you said we were going to get  _divorced_ ," she complained. 

"That's true, I did promise that," Andy nodded thoughtfully. "Our vows were pretty freaking cool anyways."

"I'm not even sure I remember mine," April shrugged.

Leslie was standing stock still, taking in the whole conversation. Whether she wanted to understand what was going on, or simply didn't _get_ this at all, it was all a little difficult to wrap her head around. Either way, she tried to sort out her thoughts and attempted to interrupt them. Meanwhile, Andy made a soft noise of disappointment before April's eyes widened and she snaked her hands around his neck. She leaned her face closer to him and chuckled softly.

"I'm joking," she whispered. "I still mean it, too."

"Yeah?"

"People are totally stupid, but you're pretty great," she flattened one side of his collar and shifted her legs in his lap for a more comfortable position. "I know some people that could totally get us married Wiccan."

"Woah, I don't think I wanna be married to a basket babe," Andy said with a laugh while April simply stared at him, unfazed, and tapped the side of his neck with one impatient finger. 

"I think we should totally do your idea, though," she said excitedly, ignoring his comment because eventually he'd understand it. "Won't it be awesome, Leslie? We're going to get remarried in a field at night by a witch."

For a moment Leslie stood there and stared. Shrugging, she asked in a defeated voice, "When's the big day?"


	132. Lonely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this to fill a drabble request on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) for "April and Leslie; loneliness."
> 
> It's been a loooooot of fluff, and namely kidfic, lately (which I am obviously all for) but let's do something a little differently to switch things up for at least today.

“You wanna come over for dinner?” Leslie offers out of the blue one day. “C’mon, you should get out of the house.”

There are some things that are easier to deal with. Even at work, when life is supposed to make sense for Leslie and April is supposed to be the dour assistant it’s hard to just  _look_ at and deal. Then selfish thoughts like that creep in, and Leslie has to remind herself that what’s difficult for her is thousands over for April. 

April doesn’t respond, at least at first. When she does, her voice is dry and slow and she says, “Fine.”

It’s as good an answer that Leslie might ever get. Sometimes she invites April over, and most of the time she visits. The state of disrepair  _everything_ is in, over at April’s place, is a little too familiar to Leslie. Newspapers with specific dates and headlines, books she’s probably already read but doesn’t want to see suddenly disappear, and pictures. So many pictures that Leslie loses count, and they’re all next to where April sleeps on the couch in a stack just within arm’s reach. 

This is her friend, and in many ways, practically, her daughter. It hurts to see. Leslie’s been there before, and she doesn’t think an Ann is going to come swoop in and help her move on from those articles and pictures. Leslie isn’t even sure April  _can_ let alone if that person exists at all.

At the dinner table at her house, April pokes absentmindedly at some pasta. “I think I overcooked it a little,” Leslie says quietly, trying to focus on something to talk about. “I think I was just excited to see you again and forgot.”

April doesn’t answer.

“Do you want me to get you some parmesan? I know you said you liked that,” Leslie tries, but still no answer. Sighing, she continues, “I think there might be some garlic bread in the freezer. How ‘bout that?”

April says nothing.

Leslie opens her mouth to speak again, but instead eats. She watches April’s plate and notices nothing changes at all on it. Not a single morsel is gone by the time Leslie’s finishing up. When Leslie went over to pick her up, because there was no way that letting her drive would be a good idea, she was poring over a sheaf of newspaper that  _always_ sits on the coffee table. Always in that same place, like April reads and rereads it every single day. So, yeah, it hurts Leslie to watch her refuse to eat, speak, or do anything.

“Where’s Ben?” April says hoarsely. 

“He’s in D.C. and you know that,” Leslie answers. “You could have gone with him.”

“Yeah,” April mumbles, and her eyes water up instantly.

“April,” Leslie stands up but April shakes a little and the wetness is gone as quickly as it came. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

“Just… call him, okay?” April says, getting out of her chair with a sigh.

Leslie takes a moment to answer, only nodding when she does. Noticing April fidget, standing at the other end of the kitchen with wide, shifty eyes, she stands up and lets the dishes lay for a moment.

“You wanna go home?” she asks and April jerks back just  _barely_ at the word, but then nods.

Yeah, it hurts to watch April go back there and sleep in the same clothes from the previous three days. It hurts to see her so alone and lost; and in the sheets between the pages of a newspaper with a headline she can’t stop reading, hopeful that she’s been asleep the whole time. But, and she has to remind herself, if she’s in pain, the hurt has to be unbearable in April.

Leslie calls Ben after she gets back.


	133. Canyon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested on tumblr for a drabble meme as the one word prompt/theme: "Overwhelmed."

The first thing April notices about the Canyon is the smell. It's an earthy, dull odor that's difficult to differentiate from the endless vistas of brown and dirt thus far, and along with it came that undefined, but obvious, taste of  _heat_ that permeated the air in the same way a drink of water is familiar. It's not necessarily bad, nor does it really do anything other than kind of get on her nerves, but it's right there along with the  _vastness_ before her eyes. They'd crossed, and lived in, flat states - the kind of dull that made her want to stab pens into her eyeballs, thankfully saved by the dulcet tones of Andy's singing voice - but this wasn't that. It wasn't boring, or flat. It was just… big. The sheer bigness of it all made her head do a twirl, her mind a flip, and before she knew it April was staring at this hole in the ground like it meant something.

It did, though. It was Andy's bucket list, and they were here now; together, and there, and watching everything from the sun still half in the sky, not quite blood red but spilling a particular shade of orange over the huge canyon. Andy stepped out of the car a moment later, quickly drawing her out of her reverie with a dumbstruck exhalation.

"Whoa," is all he could come up with.

April just kept her mouth shut because otherwise she'd say the same thing.

He walked a few steps forward until they were both in front of the car, sitting on it like it wasn't her dad's and didn't just groan from his weight. With the dry heat on them, and the sun beginning its descent out of the sky, April didn't feel that uncomfortable sliding between his legs and sitting in his lap. More than anything, it seemed natural.

"So… here we are," she said slowly, staring out and over that incomprehensible depth. Well, she could literally see it but April still didn't have the faintest idea what  _a mile deep_ even meant realistically. "Is it… um, is it-?"

She meant to ask him if it was everything he dreamed of. Would it be? In the end, this was all because just the  _idea_ of it being the last day on Earth (even if, as a rational human being, she knew it wasn't  _that_ likely) sent her into a spiral. What would she say to him? What  _could_ she say to him? Would Andy have something he'd been hiding to bring to the forefront, and what would  _that_ be? All these questions, and more, plagued her. So, in an effort to stave them off, April did everything she could for him off of that list. What could he say to her other than  _thank you_ or  _I love you_?

He doesn't say any of that; and he doesn't say what she was afraid of, irrationally and like an idiot child with no concept of reality; and he, actually, doesn't say a word.

Andy only put his hands on her waist, let his chin on her shoulder, and when she turned her head to speak he kissed her. With that, she didn't need to hear anything from him. Not for a while, at least. Later he would understand, and she might be able to tell him underneath a starlit sky next to one of the most mind boggling sights she'd ever laid eyes on in her life.


	134. Hyper-Twins and Family Fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A drabble I originally wrote on Tumblr for "Hyper + Victoria and Lucy" but ended up more as straight-up family fluff! Yay! I'm gonna try and post all the drabbles I wrote onto this fic since there were lots of kidfics and I generally liked them all.

“Andy!” April shouts, one toddler slung in her arm and still trying to crawl up and on her like a tree. “Where’s-”

As if answering her, a naked toddler speeds past the door she’s looking out. Not long after, she hears Andy yelling something and following her with a dress in his hands. He, too, flies past the doorway as April just barely manages to get the socks on Victoria. 

They thought it was going to be a nightmare remembering which was which, and April hoped for some kind of supernatural, hypermotherly instinct to show her. Instead, they got a birthmark on Lucy’s back. 

With her twin finally dressed - and not before another trip around the room chasing her, giggling, and trying to get her to calm down for just a moment - April walks down the stairs to the sight that she honestly fully expects. Jack’s sitting impatiently while Robbie pats his head, still in love with the idea that she’s so much taller than him, and Sam’s doodling in the coloring book she gets to take places. Andy’s just finishing up slipping shoes onto the now docile toddler.

“They all ready?” she asks, smiling and knowing. It’s kind of ridiculous how easily he handles  _all of them_  and, on top of making her life easier, Andy’s never been happier than being a stay at home dad. 

Look, April loves her kids to the point where she isn’t even certain someone can feel all of that but Andy? She’s sure that no one’s ever been happier in their entire life than Andy in every single instance of fatherhood.

“Yep, just gotta… there!” he stands up with the little girl in tow, cradling her easily in his one arm while he goes to grab their bags. “We’re going to go say happy birthday to Aunt Leslie. Aren’t we, guys?”

Everyone jumps off of the couch, running out to the driveway. If April wasn’t so tired, and also carrying her child, she’d have ran with them. She can see that Andy is fighting the same urge, so she nudges him with her shoulder and they walk out to get ready for a whirlwind of a birthday party attempting to keep these kids from  _totally_ ruining Leslie’s house. 


	135. Leslie, One Question...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one of these drabbles because I'm a bad person. There are tons of requests backed up, but I do want people to know that these things exist because I really like some of these. I'm sorry they're short, but I hope you understand. They were literally just drabbles, but I do really want to get to some of the requests in there.
> 
> Here's a Leslie and Andy focused one because, hey, remember how awesome that relationship is? Yeah, me too.

“Hey, Leslie?” Andy’s voice crackled on the other end of the call.

Slightly exasperated, Leslie sighed before answering, “Yes, Andy?”

When Andy said he would call her for parenting advice every once and a while, and Ben, she never expected it to be every day. Ben got calls throughout the day, so at least in that she was lucky. Still, sometimes it was ridiculous how much he called for the smallest things.

_Leslie, Jack’s got a cough. What do I do?_

_Leslie, Jack just crapped in his diaper. That’s good, right?_

_Leslie, is it totally uncool to give your kid a voodoo doll for his first birthday? I think it’s supposed to be Ann._

“Hey, Leslie,” he started this one with, “um, so… question: is it normal for a baby to sleep like five hours and then be up for, like, four and down for four? April’s about to lose her mind.”

“Andy, you didn’t read the books I sent you did you?” Leslie glanced over at her phone -  _3:47 A.M. -_ and groaned.

“They didn’t have any pictures so I didn’t read ‘em,” and she could hear the inaudible shrug and his goofy, blank face. “I gave them to April but she said she didn’t need a book to raise a kid.”

“Yes, it’s normal Andy. Please go feed your son, then put him to bed, and please… just let me sleep,” Leslie begged. 

“Oh, I already got him down. He’s awesome by the way,” Andy said quietly and then she heard a sniff. A loud,  _loud_ one that just made her smile despite the exhausted annoyance. “Um… w-whatever, yeah I’ll, uh, later Leslie. Oh, and thanks!”

He hung up without another word, and Leslie tried not to think about Andy getting teared up talking about his son or she might just lose it with him. They’d do that together later, just like they did a few days after his birth.


	136. Harvest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another drabble post because... I dunno, like I said there are a bunch of drabbles that I want on NOLY.
> 
> This one is a post-"Harvest Festival" thing. I like it, and I like thinking about April talking to Andy about why she needed to hear him say it. Oh, wait. Did I say I like thinking about that? No, it burns me up and makes me want to lie on the floor for twelve hours.

“You know what it’s like to feel like that?” April asked in a quiet voice at some ungodly hour, unable to sleep. 

She couldn’t find any. Despite how comforting hearing him finally say those words, and knowing that he meant them and loved her, April couldn’t stop  _saying_ things to him. Words just kept spilling out of her, no matter how hard she tried to stopper them. They kept coming, but the beautiful thing? He kept listening.

“No,” he admitted, squeezing her tighter. Andy nuzzled the back of her head, kissing her there before settling. “Uh, you always think that… y’know, about me?”

“I got what you meant but, like, it was like a constant mess of wondering and what-if’s,” April sighed and slinked into a smaller form with her knees held tight against her chest. Andy just snuggled around her deeper, embracing her and warming everything that seemed so cold. “Like, what if you didn’t care about me or all that-”

“Whoa, now that’s dumb,” he laughed into her neck and kissed her again. “April, you’re… like, the coolest person ever.”

“Why didn’t you say it back then?” she didn’t turn around because, even though she doubted the dark would betray her, she didn’t want him to look at her like this.

“Because I thought it was obvious,” he answered quickly, taking one hand and shifting the blanket all the way around them again. “I do, y’know, like super love you.”

“Andy, it’s obvious to you but I need to hear it okay?” she whispered. April could share all of this with him, but only like this: quiet, secretly, and at night in bed. Turning in his arms, she nestled into his chest where her voice was muffled as she said, “I just need you to say it, all right?”

For a second he said nothing, and in that second April wondered. Just like before, her mind ran free with thoughts and concerns that needn’t be there. She  _knew_ better, in all truths this was most apparent, but at the same time April didn’t want to be wrong. As she said, she needed to hear these things.

“Whatever you need,” he looked down and Andy’s face was all the joy that he always had, but with a touch of something else that she figured was just her eyes playing tricks on her. “I’ll tell you every day. Whatever makes you happy, babe. Ooh, I could totally get one of those birds with the paper on their feet or one of the bands that sings messages to you… yeah. That’d be cool right?”

She could only stand looking at him for another moment before she had to hug him tighter and wrap her legs around his waist. Digging her heels into his back, she rested her head against his chest again and sighed. She could die like this and be content. It was just  _them_ and that’s all it would ever need to be, and April loved it beyond anything her simple words could say.

“That all sounds awesome. You’re the best,” she mumbled. “Love you.”

“You too,” he whispered before kissing the top of her head. April fell asleep easily with those words clear in her head and his hands rubbing softly along her back.


	137. Ben's Boring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, another one of these. Just migrating fics, is all. I'm also lazy. So, yeah.
> 
> Sorry. I hope you like the fics anyways!

April screamed, a pillow flying over the couch at her and landing with a soft  _thump_ against her chest before falling to the floor. The living room was strewn with blankets and various pillows, the remnants of bygone forts and cubby holes they used to make out in so they didn't have to deal with thinking about Ben in the same room as them. With a laugh, Andy launched himself over the sofa, at her, and wrapped his arms around her. Picking her up, she giggled and protested but still had a huge smile on her face. They both did, but Ben didn't seem particularly thrilled.

"Do you guys have to do this  _now_?" he asked, trying to pay attention to whatever stupid TV show he was attempting to watch. "Seriously."

"Shut up, Ben," April lashed out before smiling at Andy again. "Just because you're boring doesn't mean we have to be, too."

"Or you could sit down and not run around your house like ten year olds," he suggested.

"Hey man, sorry about your, uh, thing with Leslie," Andy offered up, his eyes still locked on April's. "But, um… do you have to be in the house all the time? Maybe, like, go get something to eat… for, um, the day."

"Oh God," Ben grimaced because April's legs hooked around Andy's waist and she was starting to get ideas for the myriad blankets. "I'm gonna go drink that image away."

"Thanks, dude!" Andy yelled as he left in a rush, clearly trying to distance himself from the two of them. "Ben's so nice."

"Don't talk about Ben when we should be making a pillow fort," she said with a wry smile and a glint in her eyes, "and having sex in that fort."

"Awesome!" Andy pumped his fist in the air and, with April still latched onto him, tried his best to flit around the house and collect all of the necessary blankets.


	138. Stars and Gifts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a Mother's Day drabble that I never got around to posting on here. Whoops.
> 
> I'm posting a Father's Day fic later today to go along with it, but I forget sometimes that people don't read my other collections and might miss some of these things!

April moves all about the house, attempting to find the stupid cake Andy and the kids baked for Leslie. Knope might not have actually been her mother, but she made a damn fine surrogate for the better part of her adult life. So, it’s only respectful to bring her a cake and try not to have  _too_ much fun watching Andy wrestle three triplets and his own kids all at the same time. 

“Andy!” she shouts, but there’s no answer.

Strangely enough, she can’t remember seeing any of them in the last hour even after she spent most of the day in her home office attempting to get some work done. There are sentences April Ludgate never expected to think, but there’s that one and it doesn’t bother her at all. A seven and five year old should be pretty obvious, and loud as all hell, not to mention the giant eight year old that was her husband around their kids. Honestly, he broke more things in their house than the kids did. That didn’t even account for the others, Sam likely still asleep in her room and the twins definitely not about because Andy hasn’t tripped over a suspended bar in a threshold or stepped on a Lego.

“Babe?” she calls out again, still nothing.

A little worried, she starts for the bedroom but something catches her eye. Little cutout shapes of paper, colored and highlighted, point in arrows with little messages on them. Things like  _world’s best mom_ and  _Babe, I love you_  are on each of them, the occasional comment about how hard she works - though honestly it’s an even split, as Andy handles them at home all the way until she’s back from work - and that they all love her. Robbie’s totally messy script has crazily misspelled things and a drawing, that Sam clearly did, of a giant raptor labelled “Mommy” that’s about to make her cry because it has something large and bleeding in its talons.

Following the little arrows with their messages, she’s lead to the former nursery-turned-shared-bedroom with a closed door. On the door is a large, cutout star and a paper gravestone. 

 _Mommy!_ adorns the star.

 _Best wife and mom ever,_ the marker.

“Hey babe, have you seen the-”

Opening the door, she rolls her lips and bites down to try and hold back the smile at the sight. Andy and Jack are busy putting up red streamers, Roberta moving two little gift bags up to the small table a large cake sat on, the twins playing with a pile of boxes that clearly housed whatever was in those bags, and when she opened the door they all turned to look at her.

“Oh, crap, hey honey,” Andy put down his decoration and walked over to her, kissing her on the cheek. “We wanted to do something before we go to Leslie’s right. Right, guys?”

“Uh huh,” Robbie plays with the handles of one gift bag, running over to her mother and holding it up to her like it’s an offering.

“Dude-”

“Hey, no,” Andy interrupts.

“I told you not to do anything-”

“Which means we’re going to do something,” Andy nods, putting his arm around her back. “C’mon, you haven’t even opened your presents.” 

April takes one look at the room, Roberta looking up expectantly and clutching her legs. Threading her fingers through the girl’s hair. Jack finishes his work, looking pleased with himself when he grabs the other bag. A little form emerges from somewhere, latching onto the back of her legs and it’s definitely little Sammy. She’s groaning into her mother, tired, and the twins stay transfixed on the growing mess of Ludgate-Dwyers embracing. 

For a second, a really, really long second that might have actually been a minute or two, she kind of wanted to cry. 

“I love you guys,” she whispers, giving Andy a kiss on the cheek before crouching down to give every one of them a hug and a kiss of their own. “I’m so lucky to have an awesome family like you.”

“We’re lucky to have an awesome mom,” Jack mumbles, not looking up at her.

“Awesome wife,” Andy adds, returning her kiss and going across the room to gather up the twins. They never struggle around him, though they do love to play with the buttons on his shirt. “Who is seriously the greatest, coolest mom on the planet. Right guys?”

With a resounding, huge noise, they all voice their agreement. April’s really not prepared to handle any of this, so she tries to focus on opening the gift bag and not how insane this all feels. Not that she expected anything less, since Andy’s Mother’s Day celebrations were always so  _insane_ and intricate and always involved defacing some part of their house.

“You don’t have to get me presents, bug,” April looks down at Roberta, smiling and then scans across all of them. Sam tightens her hold and April looks over her shoulder at the yawning girl. “I already have such an amazing gift right here.”

She means it.


	139. First-time Father and Tickle Fights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A "Three times Andy celebrates Father's Day" fic because duh.

_**Father’s Day, 2024** _

 

It’s really hard to stop Andy from celebrating Mother’s Day the first time it passes. He buys a teddy bear for Jack to give her, even though he’s a little over six months and only giggles at her when she thanks him and kisses her son on the cheek (which, of course, just makes him giggle more.) He got her flowers and wrote her a song, “April is a Hot Mom,” and in the end she likes how it feels to be appreciated.

Even though it was just the three of them, quiet and together, April still had to stop him when he defined her as a four-letter acronym that brought stutters in her voice and colored heat in her face.

So, naturally, his first Father’s Day is going to be a big deal. Even if he doesn’t know it, April actually _wants_ to make a big deal out of it. He gave her time, and love, and support through making her decisions, all of them it doesn’t matter which she thinks of he was always there, so he deserves that day, too. She can’t write a song or make him do anything other than coo at whatever she does, so April has to get creative.

Thankful that he’s doing another quick studio performance gig, three hundred bucks just to record someone else’s guitar tracks and leave is sorely needed before their renter’s checks come in, April scurries around the house to prepare. With Jack in the crook of her arm, she posits a few ideas.

“We could get him a new guitar,” she offers to Jack, who only blubbers incoherent baby-speak at her. “You’re right, too expensive.”

Again, only nonsense in reply. April laughs, looking down at him and his chubby cheeks, that little nose she swore was Andy’s but he refused to believe it wasn’t hers, and she tickles at his small tub of a belly with a fingertip. He squeals in her arms, laughing, and she can’t help but respond in kind.

Something about babies is _hilarious_ to her, but April isn’t sure what it is. Maybe it’s because he makes Andy smile so much and she anything that does that to him earns nothing but love from her. Plus, he is literally her son. Seeing him laugh sparks something weird in her, probably gross too but in a good way.

Still playing with his stomach, April doesn’t realize that Andy’s come home and walked into the house. Somehow, it all seemed to slip away in that second of just enjoying their time together. It’s strange, most of the time it was her son and Andy or the three of them and April rarely had time to herself with him. Most of _that_ was breastfeeding, something April tossed around and decided that a tiny human using her boobs for sustenance was creepy enough to be awesome, and apparently really healthy so win-win, but that definitely was a strange bonding experience April couldn’t rightly explain to anyone. It just made her happy, and kept him fed.

“Hey babe,” he walks over, sets his guitar case down, and kisses her temple, looking over her shoulder at Jack. “God, he’s so fat!”

“I know,” April tickled his belly with her finger again, brushing him with her nail with a featherlight touch. “He’s so… not awful.”

“You wanted to say adorable,” Andy calls her out, and yeah he’s kind-of right. “Aww-”

“No I didn’t,” April attempts to defend herself, but realizes that there’s no reason to. Seriously, what would be the point? “Okay, you’re right. He’s super adorable.”

“Ha! Knew it,” he chuckles and rubs her shoulders once before perking up. “Oh, what’s for dinner? Takeout? Want me to order a pizza-?”

“Happy Father’s Day,” April blurts out because, otherwise, she’d never say it. She’s weak now, holding her son and fawning over him, and looking at this big goofball she decided to spend her life with on an impulsive, rash call over ten years before.

Just like that day, his face splits into a massive smile that threatens to blind her with its sheer bright positivity. “Oh my God, babe… is that really today?” he asks, looking at her with the same sort of joy that he had when she walked down the aisle. Thankfully, there are fewer tears this time around. “Wow, I really am a father aren’t I? Huh. That’s awesome.”

“Yeah, and your son wants to give you his present... which is, um, not here,” April lies boldfaced with a fake smile that he just smirks his way through. “Ugh, okay I didn’t know what to get. I can’t sing like you and make cute songs about how hot you are. This is a shitty Father’s Day.”

“Language, Ludgate,” Andy says with a giggle, looking at Jack’s wayward grasping. “Babe, he’s hungry.”

“I’m know. I can tell, babe,” she says, defeated and turns to sit down on the chair in the living room. "I'm sorry."

“Why?”

Andy follows and does his best not to stare when she opens her shirt. She’s really had to tell him not to watch, like a creeper, one too many times. It’s a wonder how they even have a kid, and he’s fed and healthy and chubby, but April’s not going to question it. Whatever the hell happens while she’s at work happens.

“Why, babe?” he repeats.

“I dunno, you were super awesome for Mother’s Day and I’m super _not_ and I don’t like that,” April mumbles, looking down at Jack for a moment before returning to Andy. “It’s not a big deal, we can go get you, like, a steak or something and call Ron and ask him how to make a steak, first of all.”

“Babe, you know how to grill. Don’t try and fool me,” Andy laughs and crouches in front of them. “Besides, I’ve got an awesome present right here. I come home to it every day.”

She expects him to pull out a brand new guitar he got at his gig or a little plushie dog that he thought was extra cute to give to Jack. Something humorous or goofy, and a little childish, to make it seem less like he’s actually thinking this through. Then he doesn’t say anything else, only leans up to kiss her for a second before breaking apart.

He always did have a weird way with words.

 

 

* * *

 

_**2026** _

 

“Jack, stop,” April says over her shoulder, typing away the final few lines of a short writeup while her kids stay in her home office for the day. She props her glasses back up on the bridge of her nose, still disgusted she has to wear them. “Your sister isn’t a toy.”

She doesn’t actually have to be working, but at the same time there’s an annoying officemate who won’t stop bugging her and making gross goo-goo eyes at April’s assistant. It’s terribly annoying, and it is that time of year anyways.

Meanwhile, behind her, Jack is poking and prodding at his ten month old sister like she’s the most mysterious thing he’s ever laid eyes on. Which, to be fair, she probably is. The first day they brought Roberta back from the hospital, a bigger baby this time, he had no idea what was happening. In some ways it was like Champion seeing Jack for the first time - somewhere between potentially terrifying and heartwarming. They read him books about storks and multiple children and all those bedtime stories, and he liked hugging April’s massive stomach, but he still looked a little wary of her.

Now he mostly pretends that she’s a slowly growing playmate and when Andy picks her up first he usually cries out.

“Hey, buddy,” April swivels in her chair, turning to look at him hovering over her stroller. “You wanna sit in mami’s lap and watch cartoons?”

The second monitor on her desk is usually for paying constant attention to two different emails on the same screen, but she can deal with a little extra micromanagement onscreen if he’ll stop poking his sister like a strange extraterrestrial. On second thought, that’d be pretty cool. Then again, that would either mean Andy is an alien or something weird happened while she was asleep and April is way less into that.

Jack stumbles over, somehow still not used to his stubby legs that she thinks are, to quote an old friend, literally the most adorable things on the planet. He crawls into her lap, with April’s help, and she turns back around with some effort and, after some haranguing from him and a few moments of opening files, she puts on his favorite collection of Lady Spazoid cartoons. Neither of them thought anything of Jack watching cartoons “meant” for little girls, since it had just as many explosions and bright colors as whatever new run of Power Rangers or whatever that he was “supposed” to watch.

He calls out a few times loudly, but April gets her work done in relative calm. There aren’t any worrying sounds from Roberta and it took all of Jack’s infancy to get past minor worries that would drive her mad without fail if she wasn’t paying absolute, undivided attention to him at all times.

April goes back to her screen, just glancing to the side for that one joke that only adults will get, the one with the stick and firecracker, and the door to her office bursts open.

“Daddy!” Jack screams and flies out of the chair as quickly as he got onto it.

“Hey, hey!” Andy crouches low to scoop Jack up in his arms, easily holding him and looking at April with a grin. “You want me to take over, babe?”

“Dude, it’s your _one_ day you don’t have to watch them,” April sighs, “and I kinda want to hang out with my kids. Y’know, you see ‘em all the time. I, like, don’t and I miss them.”

“Oh, you got a trip soon?” he asks, crestfallen. April’s begun to take up business trips that take her across the country to community outreach programs that look promising enough to get funding.

“Angela’s talking about a week-long stay in Punks-of-whatever, Pennsylvania,” April looks up at him, face even, watching him bite the inside of his cheek. “Thoughts?”

“About what?”

“The trip,” she laughs. April knows what he thinks of them, and even if they _do_ have two children and she’s the clingier one, even _Andy_ gets a little sad every now and again.

“Oh, dunno. You go on it, come back in a week. We hang out, kids miss you… all that,” he says, carrying Jack in his forearms and spinning him around, making loud whirring noises with his mouth and giggling with his son. “Not much to think about.”

April weighs the options in her head. On one hand, she’s up for a promotion. On the other, she’s literally so much better than every single person in the running that she could turn this down - and, really, it’s a dry run that she could get done in an overnight if she bothered to drum up enough will to give a crap.

“Yeah, I miss my kids,” April stands up, walking over to the crib in her home office. Reaching inside, she plays with the little hand that goes for her finger instantly despite closed eyes and another thumb in Roberta’s mouth. “I’ve been gone for way too long. I just wanna hang out with you guys for as long as I can.”

“Yeah?”

“Happy Father’s Day,” April declares, almost randomly, but this is really her present. Ever since Roberta, they’ve tightened some expenses and stuck to quite a few pizzas.

“Huh?”

“I’m gonna turn down the trip-”

“What, that’s dumb,” Andy exclaims, putting Jack down. His brow furrows in the middle, confusion clear on his face. “Babe, you said you’re gonna get a promotion.”

“Which I’m gonna get anyways, because I’m awesome at my job,” she corrects him with a shrug and pulls away from Roberta for a moment to turn around. “Besides, work comes second. That’s what Leslie always says.”

“You’re sure?” Andy asks again.

“Yeah, dude. I wanna listen to Jack call you dad and watch you clean up when Roberta craps everywhere and… I hate missing this stuff,” April crosses her arms, still a little annoyed she missed Jack’s first word. He quickly caught onto _ma_ and _mam_ _á_ but they weren’t his first words and, for some reason, that really bothers her. “I’m not quitting or anything. I just know that if anyone else gets this promotion someone’s going to regret it. With fire, probably.”

“You are so hot when you’re creepy,” he remarks, stepping forward but stopped by the weight around his leg. Looking down, laughing, April smirks.

“So yeah, happy Father’s Day or whatever,” she tries to brush it off and turns around to pick Roberta up and hold her, letting Andy take care of the vibrant, needy boy clamped onto his leg.

 

 

* * *

 

_**2033** _

 

The first time that Andy _actually_ got his father’s day was perfect.

It started, like usual, with the twins running into their bedroom at absurd-o'clock in the morning, two volatile four year olds exactly the same in their excitement, and bounding onto the bed to join them under the covers.

“Daddy, wake up!” Victoria smacks his cheeks lightly, her little hands barely registering on his face until she gets into it and taps him over and over. “Wake up!”

“Agh, honey…” Andy reaches out for April blindly but, when he looks over with the weight still on his chest, he sees Lucy and April have snuggled together almost automatically and they’re curled up, poking each other’s noses with short giggles. “Crap, they got you too. No, I can’t escape… the clutches of the evil twins-”

“No, I’m not evil!” she laughs from his chest and, reacting, Andy grabs her by the belly and sets her over next to him. She stretches and continues attacking his side with short jabs of her fingers.

April looks over Lucy and at them, Andy giggling at Victoria’s attacks. “Daddy’s ticklish,” April tells them, smiling a wicked a grin at him. “Get him, girls!”

“You betrayed me!” Andy says quietly before both of them are going for him and Andy just gives in. They’re laughing tiny little things, titters of joy, and he’s playing along because that is the sweetest sound in the universe.

Well, that and April’s laugh which she, of course, has plenty of to give at the sight in their bed. She sits up, back against the headboard and chuckles every time one of them jumps across him to flop onto their bed and back to brutalizing him with tickles. Eventually, she moves and Andy watches her, out of the corner of his eye, slowly approach Victoria still perched at his arm.

Striking in an instant, April grabs the little girl’s chubby sides and the squeal the fires out of her is so worth it and, before anyone can do anything about it, it’s an all-out tickle war and the four of them are a mess of giggling, sensitive sides, and messed-up sheets.

“Hey dad!” Robbie’s voice interrupts, the eight year old bursting into the room with as much subtlety as usually followed her steps.

“Why do all my kids-” Andy pounces on Lucy, sitting up and lifting her onto his lap to sit and calm down for a moment. “Get up before me?”

“It’s Father’s Day!” she puffs her chest out and says with excitement, and when Andy looks over she has a plate in her hands.

“What’s that?”

“Breakfast,” April says, watching the other twin bounce on the bed a few times before settling in to lying down by her legs. “Duh.”

“Yeah, dad. Duh,” Robbie shrugs and sets the plate of badly burned toast and messy, fried egg on his side of the bed on the nightstand. “Sorry, it’s-”

“Awesome,” Andy mods, taking a bite of the crumbly, bitter toast. He gulps, trying to get it down. “Yeah...  it’s g-good!”

Robbie pumps her fist in the air, and April gets a strange sense of déjà vu from that gesture, before turning around.

“Did your ma teach you how to do that?” Andy asks, cradling his daughter against his chest.

“Nah, she taught Jack yesterday,” Robbie claims.

“That’s why it’s gross,” Lucy whispers to Andy.

“Hey, don’t be mean to Jack… where’s your sister, bear?” Andy perks up and asks, curious where Sam, their five year old, could be. Really, there was one rather obvious option.

“Coloring on her bed,” Robbie answers before sprinting off towards the kitchen again.

“Babe, did you teach Jack how to cook?” Andy looks over at April.

“He wanted to and, y’know, I never get to hang out with him,” April runs her fingers through Victoria’s long black hair, squinting and staring. “I dunno. I wanted to do something nice for-”

“It’s the best,” Andy says before taking a bite of disgusting toast and putting it down. He kisses Lucy’s cheek, spreading flecks of crumb on her face. She just laughs in his arms. “I love you guys so much.”

“Love you too, dad,” the kids say quietly and, then, Lucy turns to look at April. “Say you love dad, mamá!”

“Of course I love your papá,” April replies, smirking at him. She’s tried to get them to speak Spanish, and they could speak in a broken, mixed version of the language. “He’s the best. Happy Father’s Day, babe.”

She leans forward, across two kids, and kisses him, chaste, on the lips. Which, of course, elicits a round of disgusted cries from their children cuddled between them.

To Andy, though, this is it. It’s everything. He could go back to work, yeah, or find a new job somewhere selling coffee or something dumb like that, and maybe even get Johnny Karate started back up again. Then again, he could spend every single day with his kids. Getting them up in the morning, dealing with all the grouchiness a nine year old boy can be and all that entails, playing with his kids when they were infants and toddlers until they could walk and that meant he could chase them around the house until everyone was tired. He could play them children’s songs, and the occasional Dave Matthews tune just to really ingrain it into their heads, and read them stories at bedtime with April taking care of the others since they quickly grew bored of her “knight in shining armor” tales and wanted Andy’s ridiculous ventures into candied dinosaurs saving the world, and all the chubby, red-faced dwarves and cool woodland creatures that lived in it,  with the power of love.

Andy could give all of that up, yeah, and their life would be fine. They’d need to find someone to take care of the littler ones while they were both gone at work, and that would be okay too. Then again, that would be _okay_.

What’s great is lying in bed with his daughters and his wife, starting up another skirmish in the long-fought tickle war on bellies and feet. He could eat a terrible breakfast his son cooked for him, and watch Sam color in some stars for a while later on, and he could kiss April and tell her that she’s the best and that he loves her, and take it all in with more than a few tears in his eyes because, really, his life is perfect. His kids, his wife, and just… everything. It’s perfect.

So, no, he won’t be giving this up any time soon. Family is everything, and his family just as much. They were his everything now.

 


	140. Lying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another post-7x09 fic because, well, of course. Takes place post-7x10.
> 
> Requested by robertdoc on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) as "Leslie asks Andy about April's anxiety after their heart-to-heart."

Andy's always been bad at keeping secrets. Ever since he was a kid, he could barely keep anything to himself from the ways he'd call out how cool a cow looks on a road trip or billboards they pass, and this is no different. Secrets were no different, and he always got incredibly sweaty, and gross, and fumbled his words constantly. It was a bad habit, but April said he was cute when he sweat a lot (except when he touched her and was very sweaty, then it was gross) so Andy wasn't sure what to believe. Either way, his inability to keep secrets is what started this whole situation. 

The first problem was Leslie calling him. Over the phone, Andy was even worse at keeping secrets. After the Johnny Karate finale, Andy suddenly found himself with tons more time and that meant helping Leslie with whatever she needed and April with remaining calm, getting their things packed, and preparing for all sorts of dumb government functions.

"I never knew April would hide something like that from me," Leslie spoke, her voice crackly on the other end. "I dunno, I was just... surprised. What was going on there?"

Andy doesn't answer, biting his cheek. He could already feel the sweat start to bead on his forehead just thinking about lying. He had to remind himself this isn't the thing to share, and it isn't his to talk to about. That's what April said, and he couldn't bear thinking about betraying that. Still, it  _was_ a lie saying nothing was wrong. A few more seconds pass before Andy realized Leslie was saying his name repeatedly.

"Oh, yeah, sorry Leslie," he grumbled, scratching his chin. "Um, she was... uh, I dunno. Sad and weird and we'd been talking about it-"

"You too? How did everyone know she was thinking that," Leslie sounded disappointed more than anything. Andy couldn't blame her, either.

"Well, I mean we  _are_ married," Andy said, grinning to himself, "so of course we talked about it! I mean, she's-" he stopped himself, taking a deep breath and wiping his face with the back of his sleeve. "Leslie, she was... um, super sad about keeping it away from you."

"So why didn't she just tell me?"

Andy sat on that for a while. He knew the real reason. Oh, he knew it all right and, after years, he still knew it reared its ugly head time and time again like a vestigial, dormant beast in April's mind. He knew it when she cried her eyes out after the Johnny Karate finale, at home where she felt safer doing it, and he knew it years before when she didn't want him to quit music but didn't know how to express it at first and, again when they got home, she wanted to make sure he wasn't mad at her. Yeah, Andy knew why April didn't tell her but, as far as he was concerned, that was a secret.

And, yet, it was something he could keep. He had to, or else what would April say or do? How could she trust him if he can't even do something that small. His mother always told him that if something was important to you, you fight for it and you treat it right. 

 _Or was that Ron?_ Andy thinks.  _Maybe Barney..._

Still, Andy loved her and, apparently, more than she even knew. Which, to Andy, was ridiculous. Ever since that day he goofed up at the Harvest Festival, he's made sure to tell her every single day and remind her whichever way he has to, but April still pulled back, retreated, and pointed at herself as the problem and that he would see an error in her. April was  _the_ most important thing, person, in the world to him, so he'd fight for her and treat her as best he could. Right now, what she would want - what would treat her right - would be to lie to Leslie. 

Yeah, he sweat a lot and his voice got scratchy and weird, and he might say something stupid, but it'd be fighting for her. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Andy always told himself this was keeping his vows to protect her from anything and, since she was clearly incapable of facing them herself, he'd fulfill that vow.

"She just didn't want to make you mad, or hate her, Leslie," Andy said after a long silence. It was the best he could think of because, on one hand he was telling some amount of truth without saying anything about April's state, and yet it wasn't totally the truth. "But, y'know, we love her and we want her to be awesome and the best and she just didn't see that. Guess she got wrapped up in her head."

_Smooth, Dwyer._

It takes Leslie a moment to respond. "Yeah," and she sighed. "You're probably right."

Andy remarked how right he was, and then Leslie easily slipped into a schpiel about how he should take care of his wife and her emotions but let her be herself and independent and how he did a good job. Again, Leslie knew a lot of stuff. She was probably the smartest lady he knew, and definitely the coolest (next to April, obviously) but, sometimes, she could be unaware of how deep their relationship was and how connected they really were. Maybe she still saw them as kids, and Andy was still kind-of a kid, but time changed them in an amazing way, and things could only get better from here on out.


	141. Possum Pinches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a dumb bit of fluff that was requested by parksandfluff.
> 
> It's literally, I dunno what... but it's literally just "Leslie pinches April's cheeks" in S2 (The Possum) because why not.

While running from the possum, a truly harrowing race around Ann's house that leaves April even more annoyed at the owner, it's clear in her head that she's going to have to call Andy. That, right then, sounds like the absolute worst thing on the planet and the last thing April wants to do. She doesn't need to confront him about anything, or be mad at him and ruin his one good day. Seriously, he shines shoes for a living and used to go to bed in a pit, what other days will Andy have that are as cool as being the local hero?

And, really, April hates that she did that. Why he couldn't just reciprocate was beyond her, but a tiny, almost nonexistent, part of her had a little bit of pity for him. She thinks that Leslie is going to make her call him, and it's so terrifying to think of the potential things he could do or what he might say to her, and how he might feel and that he probably just hates her now. Instead, relieving her, they just hide under the blankets and hope that the rodent will go away. Underneath the covers, it's awfully hot and Leslie is, thankfully, far away from April's personal space.

"You know," Leslie mutters, "I didn't expect you'd be this easy to get into bed."

April chuckles, but then frowns. "Ew, what?" 

"No," Leslie sighs and April can make out, with the light dotting through the loosely stitched quilt, a smile on her face. "We should probably go and get that possum."

"Or we should stay here," April suggests, "and not have eggs laid in our ears or whatever it is that possums do."

"We could talk-"

"Not about boys," April quips.

"Not about boys," Leslie agrees, nodding under the covers.

An awkward silence follows and, really, it's an awkward situation. The last thing April expected that day was to run screaming into bed with Leslie Knope, and even less so to run away from an animal that could potentially rip her to shreds with its probably insane hunger for human flesh. At least, that's what April tells herself to rationalize hiding under covers like a little kid hides from monsters in their closet.

"What d'you wanna talk about?" Leslie asks, eyes lighting up in the dark that April grows used to. "Oh, you wanna hear the story of all the blankets and quilts and covers I make for Ann? They're all amazing and-"

"I really, really don't want to talk about Ann, either," April whispers, curling her legs up closer to her chest. She thinks for a moment about what to say, and if she needs to explain this to Leslie, and then comes up with the only thing she knows will work. "Please?"

Leslie gives her that same look and, something April will never forget and wishes could be burned away from her mind for the rest of time, she says, "Aww." What makes it terrible is that she keeps making that dumb, "Aww," and then proceeds to reach forward and pinch her dimples.

Like she's a child, Leslie Knope pinches her cheeks. Clearly realizing her error, Leslie pulls away and stares wide-eyed at April who, at that moment, is debating whether the possum or this awful, uncomfortable social interaction is worse. In her mind they might as well be the same. She wants to yell, and to ask Leslie never to do that again, and to smile because her hands were soft and it was actually kind-of nice, but also April just wants this weird, annoying day to end.

"How about we never talk about that, ever," April presents with a low voice like the  _possum_ will hear about it and tell others.

"Yep, that's probably a good idea," Leslie agrees and together they sit up in the bed and scan the room for the possum. "You think he's gone?"

"I guess-"

They're met with another weird, rumbling scratchy sound that they know is the little furry devil and retreat back under the covers in a haste. At least they agreed not to  _talk_ about it for the rest of their lives, but that doesn't mean April isn't going to remember this painful, awkward exchange that reminds her of something a mother would do. That part April neatly blocks out as well, trying not to think of  _that_ on top of the whole Andy mess, the Ann house crap, and the angry vermin stalking them.

 


	142. Mama Ludgate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) as, essentially, "April basically being a mama bear."
> 
> I am very, very, very, very on board with this idea! There's some minor stuff about the children from my big family headcanon in here but I all the way intend to write chapters separately for each of the kids so we get better characterizations of them! That's probably what I'll start on next week!

As a parent, April's learned a few things that, otherwise, she likely would have never picked up. The first was ease of mind, and it only came after years and years of dealing with tiny little babies that could get hurt at any time from just about anything in the house all the way from a speck of dust in the air, to their three-legged and always curious best friend, up to their father who, in his own lovable excitement, just wanted to hold them all the time. Thankfully, Andy was a natural at holding children which was, probably, due to his gaggle of nieces and nephews and the general aura about him that screamed "giant kid." That was partially April's fault anyways, but whatever they loved being childish together. Now they had an excuse. Or, really, five excuses.

Again, April learned patience. She wasn't naturally great at that, and often wanted everything to speed up ten or twelve times just so she could get done with it - a little break at a coffee shop, having chitchat with officemates she wanted to ply with a knife or icepick - and children were no different. They took  _forever_ to learn how to talk, though really it wasn't that long, and they always wanted to eat, and after so many, April started to wonder if the whole breastfeeding thing was a bad idea but each one of them told her differently; and that she'd never regret that. Kids wanted toys and to watch TV and eat all of their food, and to be everything a little tedious and tiresome and all of that, but they're kids. April was a kid that wanted toys, and she wanted to watch TV, and she definitely ate all her parents' food, and same with Andy, so she calms her own stupid brain from getting angry at those things. 

As they grew up, April learned something else, or rather she learned how to interpret what she already was and had through the eyes of these burgeoning  _people_ that were also her babies: pride and defense. 

Pride, she knew easily. April had an amazing husband who was also the best friend in the world, was great at a job she truthfully cared about, and she knew people like Leslie  _freaking_ Knope. There was plenty in her life to be proud about, but kids were a whole new sphere of understanding that concept. When she watched Jack dangling tall with Andy holding him up by his miniscule fists, smiling at him and urging her son on, she didn't rightly understand that first emotion when he  _walked_ to her. Then when he said his first word, of course some mangling of "dad" but that was expected, and when she gave birth to their first daughter, and the light in Andy's eyes, and the children that followed; and their firsts, walks and talks and friends and everything, April knew what it was. She was proud. These were  _her_ kids and, though she knew it and loved them with all her heart, it doesn't quite sink in until something  _you_ do shapes who they are to become. Even something as small, and yet huge, as their first steps make her smile and laugh and pick them up, loving the sounds of their giggles at seeing their mother shine brightly at and for them, could bring that out. 

Then when they grew up, and took their own paths April was struck by a certain sadness that felt more like being slowly ground down by a pestle but it was just the natural extension of what she wanted them to see in their family. It was a place to be themselves, much like April wanted her own family to be. They could talk about  _whatever_ they wanted with her, and with Andy of course but they seemed to come to her with the more serious matters. Robbie's near panic attack at explaining to her that she was gay was only met with a hug and the first thing that came out of April's mouth was how proud she was of her daughter for being who she wanted to be, and, yeah, Andy found them in a cuddling, crying mess but it was okay because it felt great to be that close to her daughter. 

When Jack was the regular All-American football jock, who dearly loved his sisters so much that he even convinced her to get a cat just because it would make Sam happy, it just made sense. Not in the way that April could have set that out clearly as his future, and tried to mold him into it, but that it made sense to her because he so clearly loved it. He loved the sense of excitement in the small crowd of his peers, and how people seemed to like him and talk to him, and that his dad was so invested in what he loved already. Sure, April caught as many games as she could and cheered as loudly as the rest of them but that was more because of Jack than her love for the sport. 

Then April learned defense, or how to protect her children. Sometimes, it wasn't even to protect. Sometimes it was because people were awful, and they needed telling off.

"Your daughters need to grow up," the vice principal of their district's high school told her one day at a conference. Victoria had gotten into a shouting match with her history teacher because they refused to acknowledge Eddie. "They need to learn when someone in a position of authority is in control and they should quiet down."

"Uh huh," April nodded, trying to pretend she cared what this person had to say about something they were obviously unfit to be doing. "Tell me why you called me in here."

"Because your daughter refused to answer a direct question, and it's been happening more and more, and her sister-"

" _Son_ and  _his_ sister, thanks," April reminded him once more. She's started to get really annoyed with how dense people are around here. Leslie, the mother of stubborn resistance, responded to this better than the horrible, stout man in front of her.

Then again Leslie threw a transitioning party for him, replete with fliers declaring April and Andy's son to the world and a cake and the biggest hugs in the world from everyone they knew. He really couldn't be happier, and April could tell because just like Robbie that first talk seemed to be a mess of nerves. Then April learned that he'd asked Robbie how she talked about it, and apparently her answer was to just be himself. 

Again, pride.

"Yes, about that... it says clearly on the forms we've received that your children are both  _female_ -"

"Well, as of right now one of them is male and I'd expect a school like yours to actually respect my child's decision," April answered back with a bite in her words, harsh but technical. "You don't go around calling yourself a woman, do you? You don't call the dumb lady that got mad at Victoria for defending her brother a man, do you? Don't call my son a girl."

"Ma'am, you've gotta understand-"

"Ugh, I'm not a thousand years old don't call me ma'am," April sighed. "Seriously? You seriously want to do this?"

The graying man shook his head and scoffed. He looked down at the papers in his hands and then back up, "You know, this school's crumbling around us. We're poor, the kids keep getting dumber because of people like  _you_ that let them do whatever they want. You're going to let someone create an abomination of themselves and I should have expected it. Last time we talked you said you were busy with your husband-"

"As a zombie yes," April nodded, stoic in determination to let him finish so she can let this broiling fury in her chest loose upon him.

Then she had an ingenious plan to both make herself calm throughout the ordeal and to get back at this man. Seriously, with every word she could feel herself getting angrier. He'd say something about how her son is an abomination -  _what a load of shit you Bible thumper, he literally goes to church with your nephew_ \- and April would exhale in annoyance, and she'd need to take a long walk by herself after how frustrating this stuff is, but the real kicker happens a few rambles after his original one.

"With parents like  _you_ I'm not surprised all of your kids are fucked up," he finally growled. The moment it left his lips his eyes widened as if he'd understood his own mistake, but he didn't say a word to apologize.

"Really? You really wanna... okay, fine then. Maybe I am weird. Hell, I am weird," April shrugged. She'd try her hardest not to take the scissors on this man's desk and drive them through his neck, though she probably couldn't be blamed with the absolutely horrible things he was saying. "I'm weird, but my kids aren't. You think they're weird because they're children who know who they want to be and you're afraid of that. So, you can call my son Eddie or I can take him out of school. Social workers will ask why I did it. They'll wanna know why I took my kids away from school, and I'll just show them this recording-" April pulled her phone out of her pocket. The only thing that kept her sane throughout this entire exchange was recording his hate speech, "and I can do all kinds of terrible, disgusting legal things to you for insulting my child to my face. The kind of stuff that will sap every penny from you, and will make my  _abominations_ so much happier because then I can afford the things they want. Or, more likely, I could take that pair of scissors on your desk and kill you now on the spot because you're fucking horrid."

With that, April stood up and put her phone away. She gave him a nod and opened the door to his office without another word.

April learned how to defend her children without them needing to see it. And, really, she liked that quite a lot. Partly because no one says an even potentially sour word about her offspring, the whole horde of devils they're slowly growing into, and partly because in her day job she doesn't really get to be that mean or vindictive towards anyone anymore. When she got home, no one would know that she just threatened the life of their vice principal and, really, did that matter? She didn't need them to recognize it, but she did need them to go to school assuming it would be a safe place for them and, after hearing about how he had a talk with the VP and their private talk with all of his teachers, April knew she was right to do it.


	143. Hooked on a Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested on [my tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) as a fic based on the lyrics to Blue Swede's "Hooked on a Feeling."
> 
> I generally don't like song fics (e.g. a fic where the song lyrics are inside of the fic and integral to understanding what's going on in the fic) so this isn't necessarily that, but it does rely on the imagery and cadence/structure of the song. So, yeah! It's an amazing tune, either way.

She really doesn't get it, does she? April thinks he just likes to kiss her, or that he likes to look at her and call her pretty, and that sex is pretty great. She just doesn't get it, and Andy isn't sure if he'll ever be able to explain to her what he's going through when they so much as look at each other. Yeah, when he kisses her it's like he finally gets what that Jimmy Buffett song is about and he wants to do it again and again because she tastes like something sweet and fruity - two things that definitely don't scream  _April_ to him - and he's lost in that. April just doesn't realize what she does to him, though. 

At all.

In bed, cuddling together with April small in his arms, knees curled up between their bodies and her hands in his at their heads and above her blockade between them, Andy still doesn't think she understands. 

"Babe," he whispers, nudging her with their hands intertwined. "Hey, babe."

She blinks her eyes open, dull and without seeing, and it takes her a few more moments before anything is actually in them and then April looks at him, tired, and smiles. Or, really, it's just a movement of her lips but that's what Andy calls her smile. "Yeah?" she asks, husky voiced and sleep clear in her eyes still. "What's up?"

"You-" Andy wants to continue, but April stretches her legs out and smashes her body against his. Nestling her head in his chest, April sighs and their hands leave each other to go around the other's back, keeping them as close as possible. "Love you."

Andy's not smart, but he knows that someone as cool and amazing, and smart, as April shouldn't answer that back. Really, as much as he's cool and awesome, that's, like, a tenth of how April is just the best person in the world and he'll never get tired of her sleepy voice answering back, quiet and a little needy if he's right:

"Love you too."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Getting drunk with April is an insane experience. They both turn handsy and grope each other no matter  _where_ they are and April makes all kinds of dirty, dumb jokes that Andy's never heard before. He tries to tell her some but loses track of what he meant to say because when April pays attention to him she's  _attentive_ and her abnormally large eyes are mesmerizing and, when he's staring into these windows into her soul he can see it back there. Behind them, he feels that same unfamiliar pull towards her that he always does and sees, really  _sees_ , that belief that she's in love with him.

"You are so pretty," Andy mutters in a drunken haze, lost in alcohol's blunt wonder, doing just that and staring into April's eyes like he could be there forever.

April's face turns a spectacular shade of pink, not quite rosy but a definite shade of color rises to her cheeks, and she gives him that tiny smirk that changes his understanding of every single thing in the world. It's the sort of smile that tells him he's right - of course he is, she's beautiful and he couldn't say the right word because maybe she'd get mad - and that getting drunk with her is so awesome. _  
_

"What?" her voice barely escapes her lips, miniature and intoxicated.

"I said..." Andy closes his eyes and thinks for a second. What did he say? Oh, right. "You are beautiful."

And that's the first time he learned that April had only ever been called beautiful by two other people in her life. Which, as far as Andy's concerned, is a crime against everything he holds dear. Not that it matters. April's an amazing person, but apparently it matters to her because she won't stop kissing him after. Their beer and wine sits forgotten, one glass spilled when a shirt collides with it on the table in their frantic removal of clothes. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy knew he was totally gone the first time they kissed. From then on, that disastrous hospital encounter to their wedding day, Andy can't get it out of his mind.

_She's in love with me._

Everything she does, from frying marbles to throwing eggs against the wall because she's tired and annoyed at trying to make breakfast, drives him wild. It's stupid, probably, but why bother worrying about that when April can wear an apron as a joke and then, moments later, lose every article of clothing between the two of them because for  _whatever_ reason he thinks she's stupid hot wearing it. Then again, she's stupid hot wearing anything. Preferably nothing, according to Andy.

Which is weird, because when April gets naked she crosses her arms and gets antsy when he touches her legs and it's almost like she worries about it. To Andy, though, he's high on being able to do any of this with her. Sometimes literally, but April prefers that for when she's actually nervous and anxious. That's when they usually smoke a little before work and April tells him she can go in without a million thoughts buzzing inside her head and she thanks him. She  _thanks_ him for something that small.

_She's in love with me._

Which, honestly, just sparks that same intuition that she wants to screw him on the spot. Andy's success rate, so far, is one-hundred percent. He really hopes there isn't a day when he's wrong.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He doesn't even understand, does he?

How much that when he says that he loves her, she believes it. When Andy calls her pretty, and she knows it, and it shouldn't matter at all but it does, how much she loves him. April doesn't think he gets that he's so intuitive about almost everything to do with her - from her dreams, and her need for independence and space, and her almost insatiable desire for him - and how just being able to be herself and not having to explain it to him is the most wonderful thing on the planet.

They, together, try to tell the other just how much they love them. Forever, they try to show it but it never seems to be enough for them. Except it is, and every time April gets told that she has her own dreams and that Andy wants her to follow them she should know that he loves her more than anything in the entire universe combined and multiplied and then combined with  _that_ , mixed with that result once more, and the final sum doubled and tripled. An ounce of that is all he could hope for in return, so Andy tries to let her know in everything that he loves her just that much. He, too, is given all she can muster up because, to April, he needs to know that she couldn't go a single day without him. Yes, in the day itself she'd go about her own life and be with people that aren't him and, generally, be herself. But at the end of the day what April wants is to go back home, find Andy in boxers playing video games, snuggle up with him and watch some zombie or soldier or whatever get blown up, and be content. She wants to show him that he can be whatever he wants, but April still isn't sure he gets it.

Deep down, they know that what they have alone is the best kind of love and, yet, they always try to show it again. That's, in April and Andy's minds, how this works. There's no time to complacent because, then, she won't get that same massive jolt to her heart when he says, earnest and with the biggest heart known to man, "I love you."

It'd kill her inside to lose that, but April knows she won't. Realistically it won't ever leave, but she'll fight for it every day just to prove to him that she can return it. To say it back in the quiet hours when she feels so at home with him that her heart beats at the right time, though his turns into a frantic hammer on a bony anvil in his chest, when she says, earnest and with the biggest heart he'd ever seen squirreled away from the rest of the world, "I love you."


	144. April and Chris - II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) as a sort-of followup to the scene in "Bus Tour" where April and Chris have their little conversation about depression, only far later in the future. I wrote something on the April and Chris depression dynamic before, in Chapter 46, but this is a little different and I think a nice sentiment. Also, tangentially, related to Chapter 114.
> 
> I missed yesterday because I was writing an episode fic/smut fic. Oh well.

The first time they talked about it, hidden and like they were both skirting around it, was much the same as it was with Andy that first time, but with Chris she knew that he understood it more from his own eyes. He'd seen and felt it, and she could tell then. It was almost an unspoken vow never to say another word about that conversation, but somehow it seemed to crop up here and there. When Chris started his therapy, April made a card out of simple printer paper and wrote on it, inside the folded bit, in capitalized, red marker:

_Hope therapy makes you suck less._

April didn't bother decorating it with anything else and left it on his desk without a word. Before he could say anything to her, she had retreated back to the Parks department offices to pretend she didn't just do something nice. The next week, she saw the card sitting a bookcase in his office when she had to do the  _lamest_ job in the world - delivering paperwork because the stupid City Hall was still stupid-behind-the-times - and, for some reason, that gave her a tiny spark of something she guessed was happiness. Maybe something about it felt that she'd done some good for him, and so she only dropped the folders off with a scoff instead of an insult.

The next time the topic even came up was years later, and then again at the reunion that Ben had put together. They manage to make it out to see everyone at Andy's begging, and Jack still hasn't seen some of them yet. He only met Ron _once_ and, really, her son has to know, fear, and respect the name Swanson. In reality, April did miss people but, as far as people that weren't Andy were concerned, she just did it because how could she miss a chance to make fun of Ann (and see her kids, who are surprisingly amazing) or to show off the second greatest person on the planet that they made. At the little party, after disentangling herself from Andy, thoroughly smitten by Jack and showing him off to everyone that would listen which was everyone because her son is freaking  _cute_ okay, April catches Chris just after he returns to the offices.

"April Ludgate- _Dwyer_ ," Chris says with that broad grin of his, emphasizing the hyphenate for reasons April isn't quite sure. "It is, as usual, lovely to see you! It's been so long since we've talked."

"Ugh, now I remember why," April says with a sour trill but doesn't move away from what used to be the permits counter.

"Your wit was always so delightful," he shakes his head but his smile never falters, creating the appearance of some sort of mannequin or human flesh doll. She'll have to ask Ann where she sticks her hand later. "And what is new with the greatest person on Earth?"

"I guess I'm telling people I'm pregnant again," April shrugs.

"That is  _wonderful_ news!" he almost screams, cheerful but not in the same way that Andy's jovial picking her up and spinning her around while yelling makes her smile and feel on top of the world. No, this just makes her grimaces. "Do you know the sex? When are you due? You should ask Ann about how she handled her second pregnancy because, honestly, she is an  _amazing_ woman and I think you two are-" _  
_

"Oh God, please stop," walks forward and shuts him up with a very brief hug that barely gets her arms around him. "There, you got a hug. You congratulated me. Now we can never speak again."

Andy walks over, sans-child as Leslie fawns over him with, ugh, Ann right there to join her (though, if April's being honest, Ann should like her kid since he's basically the best) and wraps his arm over her shoulder. He's got  _that_ look like he's just seen something that's supposed to be a secret and April lets out a sigh.

"Did I just see you guys-?"

"No," April snaps, interrupting Andy and burying herself further into his side.

"But you-"

"No."

"Oh, April just gave me a hug," Chris clarifies with a shaky voice and, if she's not mistaken, a little more excitement than he should have. 

"Wow, babe, you are so sweet," Andy coos and kisses the side of her head. His rough movements require her to push her glasses back into place on the bridge of her nose, but she doesn't mind whatsoever.

"No, I'm not sweet," April whines. "I'm a demon."

"You could be a sweet demon!" Andy suggests, looking over to the corner where Leslie's now holding Jack. "Like a demon but with cotton candy."

She gives him a look and smirks. "Deal," she agrees, leaning up on her toes to kiss him. Andy leaves after another, longer kiss to go get their son.

"Now  _that_ is beautiful," Chris remarks and then seems to get an idea when his eyes flash open and he points at April. "Ah! There is  _one_ thing I wanted to give you after our little chat."

He fishes in his back pocket and produces a startlingly simple piece of paper. It's thick, almost like printer stock, and is folded in half. April rolls her lips, trying to remember what he was talking about. Then it hits her what he's talking about. Months before this, April had a relapse. 

She couldn't explain it, but the birth likely spurred it on. Hormonal imbalance and natural causes and all of that, but the chemical exchange fired off a response to seeing her son that was normally fit only to be aimed at her, and April loathed it. Hating how it felt, she just called people. She called Leslie in a panic at four in the morning and, surprisingly, Chris answered. As it turns out, they were hosting the Perkins-Traegers and he happened to be returning from a late brisk walk and answered so that no one would wake if they already hadn't. April, in her fit, didn't care. It might have been the first time anyone other than Andy, that one counselor in high school, and her Psych professor in college heard her cry.

That was when Chris gave her the number to a psychologist that Ann knew, who could help.

Months later, she really has. April grabs the card with two fingers almost clinically, like she doesn't really want to see what's in inside, and she remembers the card she gave him  _years_ ago. Opening it up, there's a single line in simple, flat print:

_You are incredible and strong, and a brave person and mother._

April stares at it for a moment and then blinks rapidly before putting the card down on the permits desk. She looks up at Chris and he gives her that winning smile, and she returns it as best she can.

"Thanks," she mutters.

"No, thank you," he rebuts and she just cocks her head curiously. "You cared, and you talked with me, and you showed that you cared in whichever way you felt comfortable doing so and that-" he jabs a finger in the air at her. "Is why you are a wonderful person."

"I just-"

"Even the smallest gestures mean the world to people in their darkest places," Chris interrupts with an almost soporific tenderness. 

April stops speaking and closes her mouth. By now, Andy's returning with their son for Chris to join in on telling them how amazing he is. Seriously, Andy could spend the entire day telling people why the way that Jack giggles is the funniest thing in the world. When he's made it there, Andy notices that specific lilt in April's voice and holds Jack's hand, standing himself up awkwardly, and slips his other into hers automatically.

The subject changes instantly, Chris asking about his diet, and then the mood changes from thankful and oddly close to something that reminds her why April never really liked him. Andy, too, just groans and his eyes glaze over when nutritional tables are mentioned and Chris drones on and on. 

When they get home, April puts that simple folded card on her desk in her office. It's way in the corner, where no one could really see it and the kids wouldn't be able to reach it for a while, and it definitely wasn't going to replace the pictures of her and Andy, and Champion and Jack, or the ones with the three of them and Leslie. Either way, it has its place in the corner.


	145. Shred

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested as "April dealing with anxiety as a parent, Andy telling the kids to do something nice for her, and then helping."
> 
> I meant to get started on those kid-focused chapters this week but, well, I didn't. Still need more time to think on them, plus there's so much going on beyond those chapters that it's gonna take a bit for me to get to them. I will, though. Don't get me wrong, I will. For now, though, have this.

Andy's not the smartest guy in the world, but he's pretty good at feeling out April's emotions. 

The one time that she was mad at him for, like, months he knew  _something_ was wrong. Then again, that was a really long time ago and thinking about a time pre-April is like thinking about himself as a baby. It's just so long ago and he was so different that Andy kind-of gets confused and doesn't remember what he was really thinking about in the first place, mostly because no April in his life is one of the single most depressing thoughts he can have. 

Still, he picks up on all kinds of things. There's that week or so in the month that he's extra nice to her because she seems to need it - and when she gets mad at him she apologizes and then she gets angry at herself and Andy doesn't hate much, but he  _does_ loathe when she says bad things about herself. When they had their first weekend at home, after leaving the hospital with Jack, she was so tired but stressed out that at the same time (and she refused to say a word about it to him) but he knew better. So Andy learned how to change diapers back then because April would get sick doing it, and then complain for him to do it anyways. It's whatever, he's gotten peed on by his nephews before so it's just an annoyance now.

April came home from work with a sour look on her face that was quickly hidden when Sam ran to her and hugged her. Dropping her bag on the floor with little care, April lifted the four year-old into her arms and a look of genuine joy swept over her. Andy grinned just looking at them, Sam quietly nestled in her mother's arms and April walking over to him in the living room doing much of nothing. As it turned out, being a stay-at-home dad was still cool but he did really like thinking about restarting Johnny Karate at some point.

"Hey babe," April called out to him and Andy instantly stood up. Expecting to have to take Sam from her, she simply sat there with the chubby, yet small, little girl in her arms. Motherhood did wonders for her prior frailty. "Anything fun happen while I was at work?"

"Y'know, same old crap. Picked up the kids, but I brought the other kids!" he added pointedly, sure to ease her mind that he didn't leave anyone alone at home while he picked up Jack and Robbie from school. "Made grilled cheese for everybody. There's some on the table for you! You said you liked it cold."

April gave him a weak smile and kissed Sam's cheek before letting her down to stumble her way over onto the couch. Giving a sigh, April sat down beside her and started taking her shoes off just to get the agony away from her likely tired feet. 

"Thanks," April finally said. "Um, hey... could we talk?" 

"Yeah, we're-" and Andy saw something in her eyes that he couldn't ever explain but he just  _knew_ it was there. "Oh! Yeah, sure."

April turned to Sam and whispered something to her, smiling, and kissed her forehead before standing up to follow Andy into her home office. It was a fair distance from the living room where Sam was, and the rest of their bedrooms, and the door had two nice locks. The key ingredient was a bit of foam in the corner facing the direction of the rest of the house that held some of the sounds inside.

Once there, Andy closed it and April tugged him towards her. He hugged her tight on instinct and April seemed to let go. 

"You wanna talk about it?" he whispered, still not totally sure that they set that weird stuff up right. 

"No," she choked, burying her head in his chest and grabbing at his clothes with desperate hands.

"Oh," he nodded. "That's okay... just, y'know, get it out."

There was one thing April told him she would never do. Well, there were actually a lot, and weirdly she lied about a lot of them. She said she'd never cook for him but, lo and behold, she managed to figure out how to make beef roast and it was actually not that bad. She could bake, too. It was kind-of strange, actually. Then she told him that she would never let her kids hear her, or see her, cry. In the moment it was the most heartbreaking thing to hear because Andy didn't like imagining her crying, or even thinking about it, but she made him promise not to let them see her do it. So he did. That's when they set up the baffling and put locks on her office door. It was a space for her to be safe and when she needed to just let something out, and Andy knew she needed it.

April needed to just disappear from everything for an hour or so sometimes, and Andy got that. Sure, he wished that she'd want him there (and most of the time she did) but there was the occasion where she refused to let him in and he could hear a momentary hitch of breath before a tiny, hidden sob let out.

Now, however, she didn't say anything about what was causing this. Then again by now Andy knew that there wasn't always a cause and sometimes the thoughts and worries, and everything, just sort of snuck up on her and stung her without warning. April didn't even seem agitated or angry, or her usual temperaments towards those feelings, but she just held onto him and seemed to take in as much of him as she could.

"You wanna cuddle on the couch?" Andy asked, nodding at the little loveseat in the room. It was just barely big enough to fit him, so she would have to sit in his lap. "C'mon babe, I'm here-"

"I know," she interrupted and nodded against him. Sniffing, she pawed his chest and looked up at him. "I know you are. Can I get... like, ten minutes?"

"Oh, totally! Babe, you should relax! You just got off work and you're-"

"Alone?" April corrected.

"Well, duh," Andy laughed. He knew that's what she wanted, but April still seemed worried that he thought she was avoiding him.

"Thank you," she said, bouncing her foot like she was antsy to say the words. April looked down and blinked, rubbed the bridge of her nose, and then smiled at him. "You're the best husband."

"And you-" he added, hugging her once more before walking over to the door to leave. "You are the greatest wife and awesome and the best mother and you're-"

"God, shut up," she smirked, blinking through misted eyes, and Andy took that as his cue to exit.

Once outside he walked over to the living room, a plan forming in his head.

 

 

* * *

 

 

April spent the time in there thinking. Thinking usually was such a problem, but there were days when it was right. A sudden, leering terror would crawl into her brain and poison her and April would have to spend hours avoiding any concentrated thought about those fears just because she wouldn't dare spend a moment thinking about them. Then there are days where she knew to stare that in the face and answer every horrible question with a sure voice because, at the least, she knew these truths. _  
_

_What if I get fired? Andy will have to get a job again and I'll need to get a new one and the kids will go hungry and I'll be a terrible mother._

That's what her thought process is like. She shredded the wrong file on accident for the first time in her entire career. Most of the time, in Pawnee, when she shredded the wrong papers it was on purpose but that was back when she worked for the government and Ron Swanson, so fucking up like that was pretty much expected and rewarded. Now, though, shredding up a paper like that could mean ruining someone's potential future, and in her case ruining five people's potential futures by being awful at her job. It didn't matter that her boss just laughed and told her the digital copies would work just fine, because April stared at those little paper shreds like she'd almost washed her own life away.

April couldn't bear to think about what would happen if she'd actually gotten in trouble over that. The best part about her job was how easy it was, but apparently she could still screw some things up. Then what would happen? They had some savings, and it got a little bigger when they sold the plot the cabin in Pawnee was on instead of simply renting it out anymore. The hassle of paperwork and phone calls and scheduled wiring was too much and Andy couldn't do it, as much as she loved him April didn't want him filling out that kind of paperwork  _monthly_ , so April just had Donna sell it. Nonetheless, when April saw those bits of paper fall to the ground and realized her mistake the first thing that flashed through her mind was Robbie walking up to her and telling her that she was hungry and April, broke and jobless, had nothing to give her.

The thought alone made her shiver in the room.

By the time she'd left her office, April had a solid cry into a pillow just to get it out of her and told herself, repeatedly, that it was going to be okay. Making her way into the living room where she expected it to be just Andy, there was the couch folded out with a blanket covering up four kids teasing and poking each other. She must have blocked out the sound with the white noise in her head, because the yelling and general brightness in the mood was unmistakeable. When she walked in, Sam was the current target of a clearly long-standing hug war. That's what Robbie called them at least, when in reality they were just times that she liked to cuddle with her siblings.

"Ma!" Robbie whined, throwing off the blanket and pointing at the screen. "Dad said we can watch  _Death Canoe 11_ and you're gonna watch it with us and we're all gonna have a sleepover on the sofa and we're gonna eat pizza rolls and he said-"

"He said all of that, huh?" April looked over to see Jack walking out with a proud look on his face, a huge plate of steaming microwaved foods in his hands, and Andy trailed behind him.

"What, I thought it'd be fun," he shrugged. She saw what else he was saying there, and what he meant by this. 

April felt a tugging at her hand and realized that Robbie had gotten up and was pulling at her to come. Smirking, April rushed after her, bounding onto the already depressed pull-out between a twin giggling and Robbie still huddled up with her sister. By the time Andy got into the mix he was tossing twins onto him to use as pillows, a holographic remote in his hand, and Jack clambered between the whole mess of Ludgate-Dwyers to sit the already scavenged plate of breading with supposedly-pizza goopy guts on the blanket.

April sidled up against Andy as best she could, making sure to have Robbie by her side until Sam made her way into the crook of April's arm. It was fine, though. They didn't really pay attention to the movie, far too interested in overly hot food and switching places. The previous hug fights get started again, and really that just meant that they ended the night snoozing together, the little ones falling asleep halfway through the movie, in a huge, comfortable pile on the couch.

April went to sleep with her head on Andy's shoulder, surrounded by her kids. In that moment, it seemed like her worries were less bothersome. Not that they disappeared, but that they fell to the side when she played with Sam's hair or Victoria squeezed out the insides of her single roll on the plate so she could just eat the outsides (and subsequently made fun of by Jack) and all of that, the dumb minutia and the silly comforts of plain family life, felt really, really cool. Andy gave her a few looks throughout the night but she never answered them the same way as when she got home from work. There would be time for that again, later, but for now she wanted to watch a canoe, somehow in space for some reason, kill a bunch of awful would-be porn stars.

Andy would take care of the eye-covering. It just made her laugh, and, really, that's what she needed.


	146. Why Not Me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a request a while ago after National Best Friend Day (a thing that apparently exists.) Anon requested: "Leslie makes the day a big deal for Ann and ignores April who, lonely while Andy is gone in London, takes it to heart."

There's two things April knows about  _National Best Friend Day_ which, before she looked it up over a boring lunch with no one there, April thought was made up by Leslie:

One: it's stupid, but she can't tell if that's because Leslie's choice of best friend is Ann Perkins, otherwise known as the single most boring person on the planet, or if that's just because of what kind of party she threw. Leslie shooed everyone out of the department, and from their jobs which April and Ron were all too happy to avoid, to hang out with her best friend. Something about agitated April but she didn't really think about it.

Part two of Reasons Why Best Friend Day is Dumb was that stupid feeling when she was at lunch, or at her desk, and no one was there. Usually Andy was there and they'd make fun of something together, or he'd call her sweet and she'd get grossed out that he thought she was, and then they'd go make out somewhere because work was stupid. He's gone, and April can handle that since he'll be back. Really, she'd had a few dreams and thoughts about what it'd be like if he didn't and April was certainly  _not_ about to talk about those nights with anyone. Instead, it's just so boring that April expected something else to happen to take the time away from her. 

Maybe she thought Leslie would say a  _word_ to her and that she'd see something April was doing and call it amazing and give her just a little bit of an ego boost, or really anything, and instead April was eating a greasy lunch of hamburgers with Ron. There were times that this was fun, just being quiet and unnoticing of the other person with him, but April truly felt  _alone_.

Which, in her mind, was at first paradoxical. She knew she was an introvert and didn't like too many people, so shouldn't she, by extension,  _want_ to be alone? April spent a lot of time working through that when she was crushing on Andy, wondering how she could feel so much for one person when she didn't like people in general, but then she learned more about herself and how it was different. The difference, the clause to the paradox, was that her being alone was of April's own decision. Loneliness separated itself from introversion in choice, and April had no choice in the matter here. It wasn't totally weird that she wanted  _some_ sort of human contact that would do something more than just eat a hamburger and refuse to speak with her, especially since her usual, daily form of that outlet wasn't even in the same country and as much as she loved seeing him in a crappy webcam it wasn't the same.

So, yeah, April was lonely. 

When she walked back to the department, April had all intention of barging in and pushing aside Ann to get  _her_ side of the love but she looked in and saw the two of them laughing, Leslie and Ann, and April knew it'd be dumb. Sure, screwing with Ann could be fun, but what would she really get out of it? 

April was so lonely that the idea of being brushed aside by Leslie really, honestly hurt. She knew that Ann was her best friend, but didn't  _she_ mean something to Leslie? Whatever happened to thinking of April as a woman and a person? 

So, instead of interrupting them, a strange compulsion drove April to leaving work early to go home and crawl into bed with Champion as company. At least  _he_ loved her, though that was probably just because he needed fed and didn't know any better. When Andy called her later, wondering why she wasn't there for the Skype chat, April broke just a little bit.

By just a little bit, she meant that Andy stayed up until five in the morning talking to her - comforting her, really - because  _God_ for some reason seeing that stupid banner and posterboard with Ann's face and Leslie's billions of praises for her  _hurt_. It hurt so much that it just brought into startling clarity how April was truly, honestly alone right now. It took Andy hour after hour to explain that she wasn't and, along the way get confused himself and tired and she listened to him eat his dinner about four hours late because he was too busy talking to her, and April hated it. _  
_

She hated it. And, yet, here she was, a lonely little ball of hate curled up with her three-legged dog, definitely _not_ crying over the phone with Andy panicking and talking about buying a ticket back to Pawnee, and wondering why Leslie couldn't just say something nice to her and now she was making Andy stay up way too late and causing him to forget to eat just so he can comfort her. It's gross, and annoying, but in the back of April's mind she knew that she needed it. That's why she just took and took, and really Andy gave it all over without a single thought. For a moment, when they were both quiet and April realized the call was several hours long, April didn't feel so alone or tired. Then she remembered that he wasn't there to be a big, warm cuddling teddy bear with her and make out, and have sex half a dozen times because she was so happy to see him, and it all came crashing back down on her.

She was inconsolable after that.


	147. April, Andy, and Sonia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a reupload (agh, not those again!) of something that was requested over the weekend that I wrote up then. It's cute, I think. So, yeah.
> 
> Have some April anxiety, Sonia, and Andy showing the potential for awesome fatherhood.

The thing about watching triplets is that, a lot of the time, they get hurt. It’s never serious, and even April’s morbid soul doesn’t want anything gruesome to happen to these kids, but they get scrapes and bruises. Andy, more often than not, is busy wrestling with all of them at once, screaming for April to join, before one of them just gets overzealous or tips over something.

Cue the crying, and the worrying kids because one of Andy’s guitars fell on the floor, and all the fun stuff. April doesn’t ever mind, though. Andy immediately tries to calm them, just like now, the higher strings of the guitar, near the head, slid along Sonia’s arm and cut her a neat little mark just below her shoulder. When the guitar landed with a soft  _thud_ against carpet, her eyes widened in fear.

“Uncle Andy I’m so-”

“Oh my God,” he interrupts, grabbing her arm and inspecting the barely-there cut like she had just lost an arm. His eyes, too, grow huge and by now April’s already going for the little first aid kit in their bathroom. “You’re okay, right? Does it hurt? You’re not bleeding, so that’s cool.”

“Your guitar-”

“C’mon, let’s go get you patched up,” he picks her up without warning, like she’s still a child or just hurt her leg and when he brings her into the bathroom Andy sets her on the sink. April, meanwhile, is busy opening the stupid box and admiring how adorable Andy is with children.

Which is why, about three weeks ago, she made the decision to go ahead and have a kid. First off, pregnancy would be gross and she’d be sweaty and mean all the time so, duh, that’s already a win. She could go into labor and have her own birth mix that could be filled with indie folk-pop songs and 50′s jams, and wear zombie makeup to scare everyone and make her kid know that she’s weird right from the start, and it all seems pretty appealing. And April remembers that, yeah, she’s not alone.

She’s got Andy in this and, looking at him instantly forgetting about his guitar that might have, at most, gotten a scuff because a kid - not even his kid - had a minor scratch. 

Secondly, it’s been months and Andy hasn’t said a word about it before she brought it up. April could tell that he wanted to but after their last microscopic fight over it he clearly didn’t want to make her unhappy, but she couldn’t stand by that. Not when the only thing barring her was questioning her capabilities and she had such an amazing, huge safety net of people she could trust. Hell, even Ben ( _gross_ ) could help her with kids.

“Uncle Andy, I’m sorry about your guitar and please don’t get mad and-”

“Whoa, slow  _down_ So-so!” Andy says jovially. His face breaks into a grin and he tousles her hair with his hand, looking at her hurt shoulder. “It’s fine! It’s totally cool. You don’t have to apologize, I’m just happy you didn’t get hurt.”

“Is it gross? Let me see it!” April looks but then mutters something close to disappointment. “Ugh, your mom’s gonna kill us,” she says, half about this and half about the fact that April didn’t tell Leslie the moment she learned she was pregnant.

“Yeah, last time you got hurt playing soccer with me and Stephen your mom yelled at us so bad,” Andy says with chuckle, reminiscing and shaking his head. “Your mom’s awesome.”

April dabs a little of the Neosporin on her finger and tries her best to get the cut. Sonia hisses, apparently stinging, and Andy’s face melts from laughter to worry but all it takes is a band-aid on top of it all to make it seem better. 

“You’re very brave,” April whispers, giving her a hug and helping her down off the sink.

“Dad says brave people make laws and they help change the world,” Sonia replies with that little precocious lilt in her voice, all too familiar to them by now.

“Yeah, well, bravery comes in all shapes and sizes,” April notes, closing up the kit and locking it. Setting it on the topmost portion of the shelf above the toilet, she turns to look at Sonia again.

“Yeah, like April is-”

“A coward because I still haven’t told your mom something very important,” she butts in, because Sonia  _will_ spoil the surprise.

“Huh?”

“Look, all I’m saying is that I’ve been totally freaking out over something and you-” April shrugs her shoulders unsure what else to say. “I think if you can brave enough for that cut, I can tell your mom this.”

“What is it?”

“Your aunt April and I are-”

“Andy,” she warns and he shuts up with another giddy smile on his face. He’s basically screamed it at anyone that will listen but they haven’t told Leslie and it’s killing them both on the inside. “You’ll find tomorrow when we tell your parents.”

“I wish I could be like you,” Sonia says quietly.

“Huh?” 

“You and mom do what dad says and… mom says bravery is being scared and doing it anyways,” she explains. April doesn’t get how a kid can know all this, just barely nine, and then she remembers that this is Leslie Knope’s child so of course. 

“She’s right,” April nods.

“I thought it was saving a train from a bunch of terrorists like Steven Seagal-”

April gives him a withering look, saying  _I’m trying to teach a lesson here_ , and he shuts up again. “Look,” she squats down and looks at Sonia, eye level. “I’m so afraid of how… this thing is going to change our life but I wanna do it so bad, and with your uncle Andy, that I’m going to anyways just because I know it’s what we want.”

“Yeah, she’s super brave,” Andy chimes in, and April looks up to see his eyes absolutely fawning over her. To be honest, she can’t wait to see his face when he sees their child for the first time. “Your aunt April is so amazing.”

When Sonia leaves, her intellectual curiosity apparently sated, April stands up and takes a deep breath.

“We’re gonna tell ‘em tonight when they pick up the kids?” Andy asks, his voice barely hiding his excitement.

“Yeah,” April nods, trying to breathe away the nerves but she can’t help it. “I’m pregnant.”

“Yep, that’s all you gotta tell Leslie, babe,” he rubs her shoulder and hugs her tight against him. “That’s it. You don’t even have to say it. I can-”

“No,” she stops him. “No, I wanna tell her.”

Andy’s smile widens to the point where she feels like she’ll be swallowed up by the sheer happiness there. “You really are amazing,” he whispers and leans down to kiss her. 


	148. Screw-ups

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested as "the first time Sam clams up and April and Andy talk about it."

April notices it and, surprisingly or maybe not, Andy does too. The next time they go to Leslie's for a weekend getaway with the kids, and April may love them but road trips are definitely on the bottom of her favorite activities, when April goes to make a joke about how stupid Ben is and expects everyone to chime in the small get-together for the governor seems to take its toll on Sam. Someone that April's never seen before is talking to her, probably in cute little baby babbles despite the fact that she's almost three, and while April's waiting for someone to chide her for being cruel she watches Sam, in Andy's arms, go silent and then instantly burst into tears.

It was loud and painful to listen to because April knew instinctively the differences in cries by now. You don't go five kids deep and just never learn that sort of thing, even if Andy was around them a little more often. April knew that wasn't a tired cry, and she was too old for that to be a hunger pain, so April dropped the bit about how Ben still sleeps with Superman PJ's, probably, and made her way over to her child. 

When the party settled down, only then did Sam. She was up the whole night, and though the others slept soundly in the guest room, Sam found them on the couch - thankfully  _after_ April had just come back from cleaning up - and refused to sleep anywhere but with them. Not that they minded, or that it mattered, but April still felt something weird about it all.

Later, the next day, she had to pull Andy away from a severely worrying pile of waffles and, much to Leslie's chagrin, pancakes. 

"Dude, if I don't go back Robbie's gonna eat all my waffles," Andy looks over his shoulder at the havoc going on in the dining room. "I-"

"This is important," she hissed at him. "Waffles can wait."

"Oh," Andy's back straightened up and his eyes took on that serious glint. "What's up, babe?"

"You noticed Sam acting weird yesterday, right?" she whispered. "Like, I'm not the only one? I'm not going crazy here?"

"What, sleeping with us? The kids always used to do that! The twins are probably-"

"No, I meant the whole not wanting to talk to anyone and crying thing," April gestures incoherently towards the dining room. "That."

"Oh...  _that_ ," Andy nods. April shakes her head in disbelief. "Well, I just figured she was tired."

"That wasn't tired, Andy. She stayed up for, like, seven hours after that," she reminds him.

"Oh yeah, I had to read her a bedtime story from memory," he chuckles and she smiles because, while it wasn't  _exactly_ the same as the books and his rendition featured a surprise appearance of a ninja and also Dave Matthews, it was absurdly cute to read a story to their child while she was snuggled between them. "Then the kicking started."

"Yep," April sighs. Kids kick, and move, and when they're agitated apparently they do it more and they knew that  _well_ by now, especially after last night. "Andy, stop being weird and tell me that you noticed the same stuff."

"Like what, it's-"

"Andy, I did this same crap when I was little," she says harshly. "Except I would dump dirt on people's shoes and spit half-chewed food on them when they talked. Sam's just... quiet. I don't, I dunno, I don't know what to do about that."

"Hey," Andy steps forward and his hands are on her shoulders. He must have noticed, and she thanks something that Andy just  _sees_ her emotions even when she tries to hide them. "Babe, look, we are the coolest parents on the planet-"

"Speak for yourself," she mumbles.

"No, you're the one who they miss," he tells her, "and the one who thinks it's dumb but spends half her day planning parties for them and getting cats and letting them dig up the backyard."

April smirks. "D'you think-"

"I think that whatever she's doing, then we can figure it out together and go from there," Andy suggests with a curling smile. "They're our kids, babe. We've always figured it out."

"But what if we don't? I mean, I get what's going on I think but... the others were so  _easy_ ," April moves closer to him and lets her cheek on his chest, thankful for the comfort in the embrace. "I just really don't wanna screw up my kids! You know that-"

"I do," Andy nods. It was, and still is April realizes, the one thing that April worries about as a mother. The crippling fear that their kids would just be useless, or awful, or in this case that something they did screwed them up as people forever. "This isn't a screw up it's just... y'know, who she is. Probably. I think?"

"Yeah," April says and she knows. "I mean, like I said... I was that kid. So, yeah, it makes sense she gets it from me."

"Hey, whoa," Andy notices her voice fall and he must see something dim in her eyes. "Babe, look. If we figure out that it was something with yesterday's party and she's just as loud as Robbie in a week then we're good! If she doesn't want to talk to Leslie anymore because she's scared or whatever it is, then we can talk about it."

"Andy-"

"I just think, maybe, this is who she is. You know she didn't cry a lot," Andy tells her.

"You're right. She slept so much, too."

"Yeah! This makes sense, babe. It's who she is, and we gotta make sure she's comfortable," Andy smiles and looks down at her.

"Safe, and comfortable, and loved, and that we are always here unlike my dumb parents," April looks up at him with desperately hopeful eyes.

"We are the best parents," he says with a chuckle.

"Promise me that," she refuses to budge until he's done that. "We-"

"Are going to make sure they know they have the best parents," Andy finishes, "and that we love them so much and that you are the best mom on the planet."

"You're the best dad ever," she smirks and leans up to kiss him.

Meanwhile, when they've finally broken away from each other, the sounds of boisterous laughing comes from the kitchen and when they get back to it, Ben is wiping whipped cream and a chunk of pancake from his face. 


	149. A Good Start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I was out for the weekend from Thursday to Sunday so I missed that day. No Wednesday posting was sheer laziness on my behalf.
> 
> As reparation, have this chapter that is quite vague on purpose! I want you guys to think more.

"Babe," Andy walks forward, a package in his hand approaching the pouting, angry-looking shape of his wife. Well, maybe not her shape. Then again, a lot of her is angry.

"What?" she bites back instantly.

As it turns out, work had been hell and April just wanted to relax. Andy thought that meant with him, but she brushed past him in a mild fury that sent him, sadly, away. He wasn't unused to being rebuffed when April was especially angry, but every time it made him sad. April usually made up with him later, but he always wonders. He's not as stupid as people seem to think, though he kinda is sometimes, so he knows stuff that bothers her really gets to her and burns her up.

"Oh, I, um, thought you were kinda angry and stuff so I got you something," he presented her a neatly wrapped package after talking, looking away from her and then back with a grin on his face.

"Andy-"

"I know, I know," he mutters. "You said it wasn't about buying you stuff but you seemed super upset and y'know, that thing we talked about-"

"And?" she interrupts, eager to stop him from talking about something that was clearly a struggle to think about, and something that he was struggling to deal with too. Together they'd figure it out, though.

"And, I figured you'd want me to do something," Andy smiles. "C'mon, open your presents!"

The thing is that Andy notices small changes, like these subtle shifts in people's moods. He's always been super good at that, and April is no exception. She's probably even more on his radar than anyone else, but the point is that Andy sees a weaker smile and a dimmer look at him. At first, the one, tiny sliver of his mind that bothered thinking about sad things went to a disastrously morbid corner, assuming she was done with him but that isn't it. At least, Andy hopes it isn't.

What it probably has to do with her sitting around in pajamas more often than was already normal (just about to the last second of going in to work and all day after to "accidentally" forgetting to change halfway through the drive to work) and she just sort of  _existed_ around him and didn't seem at all happy with something. 

"Is this-?"

"Y'know, I can do some of that stuff," Andy scratches the back of his neck. Then he clears his throat and speaks in what he thinks sounds forceful but probably came out confused, "Open that."

April's eyes lit up for the first time in days and she peels back the paper slowly. By the time she reveals the two, floral and crazily patterned skirts her face shifts from excitement to confusion and then, finally, a dour grimace.

"You bought me clothes?" she asks with a chuckle, unfolding the bluish-green skirt with half of it covered in a bold, literal flower, a sickly shade of green for some reason, in the fabric.

"I mean, I said I wanna treat you like a queen and I got a paycheck and-"

"Andy, you don't need to do any of this," she murmurs.

"You are so bummed out," he answers back with a sigh, "and I dunno. You could, like, wear 'em?"

April smirks, and holds them up again. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, you'll wear 'em," he tells her this time. April's face clearly shifts to a slight amusement and a tiny thing of a smirk at his sudden change in his tone, and Andy realizes how easily it comes out of him. "That was good, right? Do I need to-?"

"No, it's a good first try," she smiles weakly and walks over to him. Leaning up on her toes, April gives him a peck on the lips and turns around to go to their bedroom.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, April seems so happy wearing that hideous skirt and doesn't say a word about any of it to people because, really, what are they going to ask her? 

Andy thinks he's done something right, but he has no idea. This is all so new to him that all he does is sigh, pick up the notepad labeled  _Ideas for April_ and bites his cheek because, for the life of him, he can't remember where he put that pencil. It takes him about forty minutes to realize it was in his pocket the whole time and, by then, the lunch hour is over. Likewise, April's been back and that gleam in her eyes tells him that he  _did_ do something right.  _  
_

Not that he expects this to solve everything - hell, he doesn't get how this helps her but he's going to try until he does - but it's, like she said, a good start.


	150. Frankly, Mr. Shankly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week is dedicated to using your head! Though I will probably also write some requests when I get bored, inevitably. However, for now, it's up to you to carve out your own interpretations.
> 
> Yay!

The DJ, puppy or Ben or whatever Leslie decided on, looks directly at Andy. He gives Ben the signal, and a Britpop tune unfolds into the large auditorium. She hated the music before, though her and Ben have alarmingly similar tastes in alt rock that never gets talked about because she just about vomits every time Andy brings it up. So he doesn't.

When it hits an airy chord strummed repetitively, Andy doesn't really mind it because there's a surprising energy to it outside the realm of the imagery. So Andy, for once, ignores the lyrics to get into the music. At the same time, he finds her and something like a smile worms its way onto her face until she understands with a nod of his head. It only takes another moment, and he can convince her to dance. It's not a slow number, but the song calls for it and she's dressed for an especially gloomy waltz. April slips her arms over his, and one hand into his own, with a fluid ease, barely snaking around him until they're closely entwined like roots around a stony outcropping.

Andy's feet don't have it in them to handle a slow dance for long, but April's veil now forgotten shows that she's smiling with more eager affection behind her eyes so he goes for it. It's not that hard to get the hang of it, and before long they work up a rhythm that makes him sweat and the joy in April's face belies the fact that she's  _dancing_.

"You said you hated dancing," he shouts over the music, smiling.

"I hated the music," she returns and looks down at their feet for a second. Looking back up, she's rolled her lips in that time and blinks rapidly. "Now I feel like I'm in a Poe story."

"Who?" 

"Never mind," April chuckles and Andy gets inventive, and spins her once. It's doofy and romantic, and probably not at all what she wants, but then the light in the auditorium dims for the smile she has. 

People around them become tiny and insignificant, and suddenly April is closer and her dress no longer seems black to him. It  _is_ black, but the vibrant energy surrounding them, from the Smiths song that's still dreary but lively to the way she never looks away from him for the entirety of the song, instills something new in it for him, though it must be for her as well because she simply won't stop smiling. The color isn't the literal, real shade of her mourning gown in its darkness but the way that her eyes find his and he can feel that surge that pushes her forward and pushes them both together even further. It's the blues that defined her before, a little smear that was barely more than the primary itself and had no feature otherwise. 

It became yellow, and showed him that he needs to give her something he thought he couldn't. The reds, too, they blossomed into distinct shades that he'd never seen before her and never knew that could be real or something he could have and, yet, here they are. He never saw the greens, and Andy has never been happier for that, but right now it's all meshing into some kind of spectrum he's never understood before. It's April, but different. 

Just like them, it's the same but only a little different. Andy guides her along the dance, somehow because he has no idea what to do though it works out kind-of, and before long he realizes the song's changed and it's something that April would hate with a passion probably (because he likes it) and she's panting, tired. He's beat, too, and they go to grab punch before the King and Queen are announced. 

Then, when she tilts a cup of punch over onto the floor, spilling it everywhere, he sees that side of April and knows to keep the rest behind them for the rest of the night. 

"Babe," she has a glimmer in her eye that tells Andy to smile and nod in response, "I need to go do something fast and then we can hang out some more. Drink, fight some kids, yell at them for being dumb... whatever you say!"

"Awesome!" he shouts, trying to speak over the music and April dashes off. 

He gives Ben another look and nods. For now the color would smooth out and separate, but later they would come back together. An hour or so spent alone would shift and jumble them up all over again, just for her to pull them apart for herself but not alone. He'd help her find the lines drawn between as best he could, and as best as he has for years now.


	151. Wet Gold

The light that breaks through is low. Windowpanes barely hold it back, scorching a fanned outline in front of her feet. All around her, things seem  _smaller_ somehow. Staring at the wide angled spool of light growing and growing, there's nothing in her head other than staring at it. 

The light that fills the house is slow, and reaches her after an hour of crouching on the carpet. Her fingers have learned what it feels like, the tips caressing the fibers and scratching downward until her palms press into it hard. It must have been an hour, at least, though she can't quite figure it out. Something here feels empty as if April's forgotten what everything means save for the rough carpet underneath her, rolling between her fingers and along the bare skin of her legs where red besmirches the lengths of them, and she looks up at the light.

It's warm and golden, but too bright and she has to squint despite the window. Falling to her back, she takes a deep breath and touches the carpet again. It's all she knows, and loneliness. That, too, she feels is there. Though the curling of her fingers can scrape down to the roots of the fiber and stitching, there isn't really anything at the bottom of it all and April chuckles to herself. It's a dark, mirthless whine more than a laugh but she still gives it as if someone's there to listen to it. They aren't, and he isn't. And, truthfully, it hurts.

Spent, bent backwards and broken, she wonders if she can be done. Wonders if it's done. Wonders if she needs it anymore. It's the finale, but the reverberations and shockwaves still course through her like it's not a wealth of agony, and yet she knows it's worth it.

The next breath is hard, and stabs her lungs with perforations of anxiety and fear before it ever leaves her, and the next is no better, but when she touches the carpet she feels alive again and the nerves come back to life. The thought that this will end with no reparation surges into her mind, but then is gone when cool air touches harsh, burning skin. It hurts, but it's also life. It's white heat and scarring, but it reminds her that she is alive. Her fingers work once more, but she doesn't dare close her eyes again lest she disappear forever, wondering where he is. It's only a second more, or perhaps a minute or even a day April has no concept of time anymore, when she feels a warm weight on her shoulder. Then something soft covers her back, bare skin and marks along her sheltered, and when she looks up she smiles.

She isn't alone.


	152. Four

"One," she says to him after a simple day, kissing his cheek and whispering. It's the routine.

If you asked April a year, a month, or even a day ago if she would have gone through with this she might have said no. There might have been a time when she would have thought otherwise, and that this was meant to happen, but, all told, she wouldn't have said yes. Some part of her would be disgusted, or laugh, and think it's a stupid idea, but then something else underneath all of that would have a very different opinion on the matter and what, really, what she wants. Which part of it? Who knows, because she doesn't even know herself. All April knows is that it's happening now.

It's freedom and lucidity, but harsh and painful. Which parts she expected the most are unclear, but it is truly new to her and, in the end, shakes the dust off of her bones and every bit of weakness in her muscles dies for a newfound will. He says things, harder things, and she loves them. She expects more from him, and every single time he gives now. It isn't even a question anymore, and there's no longer a need for any sort of safety net. Andy simply gives, and it's the most fulfilling experience of her life. So, she may be angry at the time it took to get there or that he took longer than she would have hoped for but, still, she's there and he gave and gave. He took time for her, and learned, and together they're stronger and better.

This gives the room a new meaning, the one she retreats to for comfort when the world feels sharp and crushes her every day. There  _is_ a routine, but sometimes she needs to speed it up for the day and he understands, and so they build their own way to speak over the children about it.

Kissing his cheek and telling him in a whisper, "Two." That lets him know how many. Walking back to the room, waiting for him to follow after an explanation.

The sound-proofing, solace, and ability to be open even when the kids aren't that far away, is what lets her know that telling Andy this  _years_ ago was worth it. It fills her with the sort of love for him that she can barely comprehend. Eager, caring, and still the routine. It works for her, and reminds her why it's all worth it in the end. It sparks a fire in her muscles that spreads so far that she wants more, but knows she can't have it. That's not the deal, and she's so relieved to be like that and open, honest, with him that it usually makes her cry. 

It's always a weak thing, her sobs. She's not particularly used to it, and the first time that she did it Andy was so shocked that he almost called the whole thing off and wanted to make sure she was okay. She was, and she was so  _damn good_ that she explained to him over and over again - weeping, wilted  _thank you's_ \- that she loves him, and that she has never felt more alive and real. It is her, and everything she wants he gives her and the tears are because she wants to make it part of their life, and give her the confidence and reinforce her strength and independence. He does it, and she loves him for it. _  
_

He'll tell her, whispering to her at work when he drops by for lunch, "Three."

It nearly burns her inside and out, and she can't wait for him to fulfill that promise of three. After, he takes but after giving so much she willingly hands it over with the utmost devotion that she can only hope to replicate from him, that undying love in him that she simply doesn't understand how he can have for her after all this time. After everything, and who she still is, he gives. It's only right, only fair, for him to take.

The old April would laugh at this, and think it stupid and just the same she would think about it later, in the confines of pretended privacy within her head. April of then would wonder, and question herself over and over but, in the end, conclude that it is a lie and she doesn't need that. She surely  _can't_ be that person. That April would be lying to herself. She would convince herself that it's all a joke and stupid, or gross, or a lie of life.

And, yet, she would be wrong.

So wrong that April can scarcely imagine being without it. Without that dream of his warmth around her, that stinging along flesh, and the metered, final whisper of, "Four."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ends the spectacular failure that is, "Think for yourself" week!
> 
> Next week, I want to dig into some angsty stuff. It's been a long time since I've done so, and, well, as much as I love the kids and writing them and being entrenched in those headcanons there are times when I'd like to do other stuff!


	153. Apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna try this theme week thing again, hopefully with something a little better. This time, it's angst week! That means four days of stuff that is meant to pull at those heartstrings, evoke an emotional response, and get you wondering why the author (hi!) is such an awful person. Today isn't very extreme, so don't worry.
> 
> Sadly, this means most of my requests are on hold at the moment but I will gladly take any you want to send into [my tumblr!](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com)

The first time April realizes she misses him more than anything is when she goes to a pub, alone, in Washington D.C. in some effort to get rid of her growing anger at the stupid job with Ben. She takes an overly long detour, avoiding a busy section of town just to get away from the number of people there, and the walk gives her time to think about everything from why she was so bothered with being told to fix a typesetting and why she barely takes a step into the rowdy, noisy establishment before she has to leave. 

No more than a minute, and she has to get away. For some reason it feels pointless, and constricting even if there was just one particularly loud group of people in a corner that could never conceivably look at let alone talk to her, so April doesn't bother attempting to stay and drink for whatever reason she felt it was necessary. It hits her that it's their routine. If she can handle it, they head out to a bar and get drunk together and make fun of people passing by, the band playing, and play darts with warm faces and stumbles in their step. He'd hug her close, be warm, and they'd spend a good portion of the night making out in a dark corner or, sometimes, he'd toss her onto a pool table and they'd get kicked out.

None of that is there, and when April takes out a poorly rolled joint to stab away at the nerves it all comes crashing down how uneven life is in Washington. 

There's no fun, no flamboyance, and no Andy. It's not the same at all, and they knew it was going to be like this since the start of it and April told herself it would be okay, and that Andy was always a phone call away; he would be right there, right at her fingertips, but he really isn't. He has his own life, so when he doesn't answer it's fine, but there are times he doesn't answer that take that original feeling and crush it back into place. Taking a short puff, looking over her shoulder in nervous worry, she tosses the little cigarette on the ground and stamps it out, accepts the little ranting Leslie in her head, and finds the walk unbearably long.

Thankfully, when she tries to call him there's but one ring.

"Hey babe! What's up, everything going awesome over there?" Andy sounds so damn excited she has an unstoppable smile on her face, and almost misses a walk light.

"Yeah, it's fine," she says in a small voice, tired and only now feeling a little warmth and comfort. "Anything cool in Pawnee?"

"Oh, duh, there's this super awesome dinner-thing that Leslie is putting together and she wants me to handle people at the entrance. Like, taking their coats and stuff," Andy says with what has to be a huge grin on his face and April chuckles picturing it. "I wish you were here, you'd think it was dumb... but, y'know, there's free booze!"

"That sounds great," she sees her building and sighs, knowing that he's getting ready to leave just as she's about to sit down and relax for the night. It's different than at home, where relaxing at night meant Andy falling into the couch with a lazy flop, April slinking onto him and appreciating the lovable squish of his belly and sliding her legs between his. 

"You okay, babe?"

April's pulled from her revery as she takes the elevator. "Yeah," she deflects him even though she knows she shouldn't. There's no point in making him worry. 

"You just sound-"

"I'm fine, Andy," she reassures him.

"Oh, okay," he replies and she wishes he'd push the issue just for a reason to talk to him more. 

"Um, you sure you're okay?" Andy's voice is quiet, like someone will hear them talk. It's a habit of his, asking about these things after a few drinks or getting a pizza, and always quiet in the norm,ally busy hours.

"I'm..." she looks around the elevator and no one's there, but it's still too much, "can I talk about it when I get back to my apartment?"

"Yeah, sure! Wait... how long is that gonna be? Leslie needs me to go, like, super early and do other stuff," he sounds like he wants to apologize but the amount of times he's apologized for this and April's tried to scold it out of him have worked, sadly, quite well. "I'm getting paid, like, eighty bucks though."

"It'll just be a second. Can you stay on the call for a few minutes?"

"Babe, totally! I'll stay up all night if I can," and April smirks, the elevator doors opening. 

She takes a brisk walk back to her apartment and when she opens the door the place is just as dull as before. She put up a few pictures she took from Pawnee, a little photo of them from the wedding on the kitchen counter that greets her every time she comes in the door so that she can pretend it's like he's there too. There was no way she could have gotten away with taking one of the signs off the wall and on a plane, but she does have another picture on the coffee table in the miniature studio living space. April's lived in dreary loneliness before, but that wasn't when the antidote to all of that was in her life and halfway across the country. By the time she sat down on the chair she couldn't quite sprawl out on, Andy was still on the call.

"So what's up?" he breaches it before she can, and before April can pretend that it's all better now. True, going back to a place where all she needed was a laptop, an internet connection, and herself was fine, but usually Andy was just in the next room or right next to her. 

Washington, for all the people and wonders of a large city, is awfully lonely.

"Nothing, I just... y'know, miss you," she murmurs, unsure why it's so hard just to tell him. 

"Aw, babe-"

"Ew," she grimaces but it falters, knowing that he isn't here to call her  _full of love_ or something and then she could laugh and dismiss it until he's tickled her half into a stupor and... it hurts. "That's not what I meant-"

"I know," he brushes it off because he's heard her reaction to that voice so many times before. "You wanna, like, talk?"

"D'you mind?" she wonders aloud, curiously trying to dig back for when he ever  _minded_ anything to do with her. She comes up short, these last few years.

"What? No!" he chuckles and April smiles to herself, pulling her knees up into the chair with her. She curls around herself and into the armrest. 

"I thought you had to be at Leslie's thing?"

"Ugh, you're right..." Andy sounds truly torn. "I should stay and talk with you."

"No, Andy. Don't worry about me, it's just nice to hear your voice," April mutters and lets out a protracted sigh. "Missed it."

"Miss you," Andy answers back, his voice soft and sweet and with a hint of that honeyed care.

"Yeah," she laughs and bites at her fingernail, and her brain shocks her with another thought that he's trying to get off the phone quickly. It makes her laugh again. "So much. Love you."

"Love ya too," Andy says in a half singsong tone, letting the note drop quickly when April laughs a short, dry thing.

Then he hangs up, and it's like that little bit of comfort goes away. Just when she felt relaxed again, and like she could just doze off listening to Andy talk about how awesome getting to check people's coats is, she remembers, all too vividly, that she's never been more lonely in her entire life.

 

 

* * *

 

 

April's been at the bottom of her life before, and it's really strange to come out of that knowing that was that place and you never want to go back to it, but it wasn't Washington. It wasn't before Andy, when she was tired and lonely and scared and angry at everything that happened across her path, and it definitely wasn't that time in high school when she seriously contemplated doing something horrible to herself. 

It's leaving London without Andy. It's telling herself that this is fine, and that things are okay. It's knowing that this is truth, but something in her mind telling her that every step of the way it's going to be even harder than before in Washington. In Washington she got to make fun of Ben, and mess with interns that barely qualify for anything but have amazing footholds in politics that will get them ridiculous jobs driven purely by nepotism, and then she could go to her apartment and call Andy. They'd talk for hours, and they probably still will now that he's in London. Hell, she made sure that he had a laptop and knew how to configure everything this time so that she could at least see him. 

Now she has to watch couples, happy couples  _together_ , and know that she doesn't have that right now. Even  _Jerry_ goes home to his family and doesn't have to deal with this loneliness, so April takes it out on him even harder until she all but splashes scalding hot coffee on him. The moment she does it, she regrets it, but for a brief flash of an instant it's gratifying to know he's in pain because being this far away from Andy is just the same.

Then she gets a speech from Leslie, and has to go do some stupid HR seminar for a week and it's so amazingly boring but April's gotten used to just following the status quo in City Hall. Go to work, miss Andy, copy something or other and then answer a phone call maybe, miss Andy at lunch; she'd go to the cafeteria and eat a super greasy cheeseburger with bacon thrown on top because it makes her feel better for a second, like awful comfort, and then she'd miss smearing the grease all over his face and kissing it off of him. It's everywhere, and she hates it. Hates that Leslie has Ben, though she's never going to say it to her April is nothing but glad that Leslie is happy, and hates that people other than her get to know what it's like to snuggle into bed with their partner.

Hates that her partner is a screen now, and that he can't hug her and pick her up and spin her around like she's the most amazing person on the planet. He can't crawl into bed, hungry and with a growling chuckle that makes the night amazing, and she just misses it so much that the cheeseburger that initially worked just tastes like shit. It makes the whole world feel gray and boring, and dull, that she tries to be nice to people to make it better and it fails, miserably. But, at least, she knows that he'll be back. The only way she can get through this drudgery is the knowledge that, in a few months, he'll be snug and sound in their bed and she can wrap her legs around him and kiss him and show him how important he is to her, how much she loves him, and not have to deal with the damned self-starved seclusion.

Even Pawnee, too, with its charismatic and effusive Leslie Knope and the goofball entrepreneur in Tom, and her basically-dad Ron, all of them are fine and wonderful, but it's never the same. This city too, where she thought, after Washington, would be her safe haven of comfort, felt binding and cold.

Andy will never know, but it's much like the nights in D.C. where she spends too many nights - more than she will  _ever_ tell - curled up in bed, thankfully with Champion this time, and lets herself go for a little while.


	154. Nice to Know You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, today we're going to ramp up a little. Yesterday was a little feels-y, but nothing grievous. Today is actually a request, strangely enough, from a while ago.
> 
> Like Chapter 143, I'll say that I personally dislike writing the structure of songfic so I won't be writing that in specific. Instead, let's write something with a thematic/structural respect to the Death Cab for Cutie song, "Title and Registration."
> 
> Dan, you're an asshole.

April wishes the road were really like home, but at some point she needs to figure out what home actually is anymore. She needs to change her definition, reconfigure it all, and try to work forward. With a torrent of rain battering the windows, wipers working their best to push past the waves but still leaving a rather heavy mist in front of her, and the rather overcast Northwest sky looming above and over in the horizon that she can barely make out, it's the perfect time to be assaulted by her thoughts. 

Really, she should hate cars. They represent the very reason she drives without aim, trying to rediscover home, and coming up short.

A few times on the slippery road, black and dirty from obvious overrunning mud and clay after storms like these, April nearly slid off and wondered what it would be like to just let it happen and then quickly dropped the thought. A crack of thunder sizzles in the distance, dulled by the protection of her car, and in front of her nothing but a relatively open stretch of road greets her, a line of sagging, morose trees on either side barricades her from the literal escape and that's what brought her from that first thought. If she veered off, she'd hit a tree; April doesn't bother with her seatbelt anymore, and she'd be launched through the windshield. 

_It'd be nice._

But she doesn't stop to let that thought continue, instead stopping at the side of the road where an outcropping of trees is bowled over leaving a rough circle where she can keep the car and not risk having someone run into her at night. The worst that would happen is someone would find her, see her, and break into the car with a heavy object and probably kill her.

_It'd be nice._

Honestly, it wouldn't be great to wake up like that and, at most, be awake for a few moments at all after that. And that's the optimistic approach, another thing April tries to suppress these days as well. Pulling over into the circle, she pulls out a jacket from the backseat and tosses it in her lap. Desperate for a smoke, she leans over to pop open the glove compartment to get them. Snapping the button, she fumbles and lets go of the little door and papers apparently held up by the closed chamber slip out and fall in a sloppy mess on the passenger seat. Sighing, she turns in her seat to look at the piles and rifles through for the little box.

Pushing a few napkins away, she sees them but underneath, weighted under them, is a photo.

She's smiling, sitting in his lap, and she sits there staring at it, hand outstretched towards the cigarettes and fingers almost there, for some amount of time she can't figure out. It's outdoors, near a cabin that she remembers but doesn't want to, and he's got his hands raised in the air in some sort of silly triumph that probably has to do with calling her the greatest wife in the world. His face is painful to discover here, to analyze and decode every inch of him she still remembers the heat of but can't quite recall the exact touch, and she blinks rapidly with her hand slowly edging towards the cigarettes. She brushes them aside, letting the cardboard fall off the seat with a soft  _thump_ and April picks up the photograph with shaking hands. _  
_

Remembering the exact day, and the exact moment this was taken, the corner of her mouth lifts up without her noticing for a few seconds. Before she can help it, though, she's touching the picture. As much as she tries to forget it, the memory isn't foggy at all or weak or even desperately unwanted. They're there, and important, and she never wants to chase them off, just the feeling that she can't go back to them. She can never go back to it, and she knows that if she does he'll have gone on and won't want to ask why she did it, or if it was about someone else, and if she wants to get her stuff and how he'll be an amazing person and let her apologize and come back into his life, arms open and all.

But she can't do that, and she can't go back to that place no matter how hard she tries. She's sure the feeling is still there, not lost but changing and slowly dying from atrophy, but something about it terrifies her. Reality, and that he might not want her back anymore keeps her going away from him. It's a self-fulfilling cycle of self-loathing and hatred, where she wants to believe that if she can make it back to Pawnee before he leaves that Andy will lift her up and make life warm again, and hold her, kiss her, accept her tears of apology and tug her back into his life with those soft cuddles at dark hours in the morning when she can barely stand the space in her mind, but she knows that's not true. If she goes back, he'll be with someone else. He'll have moved on, from her and their life they wanted to have together, and she can't go back to that. No matter how many times her phone rang that first week, she'll never be able to go back to him without having to explain and the problem is she can't.

Worse yet, it will change everything. He won't trust her anymore, and he shouldn't. She can't even trust herself to not stare at this picture for however long, not realizing she's bawling her eyes out forgotten on a lonely road to nowhere trying to repress every single of those amazing memories, bring them back, and focus on them all at once.

April can't go back to that day at the cabin, and be the smiling woman in his lap. She traces the picture again, running over her outline and his and then stopping with her nail on his face, and wonders what life would have become if she didn't pack three changes of clothes at midnight and speed off in her car without warning. Who would they be in five, or ten years? They might not be the same, but they could figure it out and figure it out together without the need for  _this_. But, now, she's made a decision. Rash, absurd, and with just the worry that it would all be too much for the both of them in that time. She was saving them both from the heartbreak that many years down the road.

Which leads to the question, April rubbing off the meager black around her eyes she bothered with that morning for  _some_ reason, of if they would even be like that. It'd be nice to know who they would be at the end of the line, because April knows their love would have been enough. Now, though, it's broken. She broke it, and she can't do anything other than drive, cry, and reminisce. No more warm laps, soft kisses, and rough, fun nights in bed that made her want to scream into the night how much she loved him. 

Drive. Cry. Drive, forever, and try to find that new definition of home that's somehow supposed to be without Andy. Without the man that looked at her like she was his sunshine on their wedding day, and she's convinced wouldn't give her the time of day now. Wouldn't dare look her way, and she just wants him to see her and pretend that she's the same person before she drove this spike into both of their hearts.

 _It'd be nice_.


	155. Scarce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who know where this headcanon is going, from tumblr, then I'm sorry. For those who don't, I'm even more sorry because it's going to hurt a lot.

Everyone files into the room, all behind her. Robbie stands tall against the wall, her arms crossed and a heavy crease to her brow that's unusual on her and masks the typical brightness there, and she refuses to say anything. Her mouth is a thin line, pouted and worried. Jack, likewise, doesn't say anything but he sits down in one of the weak, plastic chairs. His forehead taps against his clasped hands, angled close to him, every few moments and it's really the only sound there. The twins have yet to make it, and Sam texts April to let her know she's in an elevator. They're all sitting in the chilly unease of the hospital room, surrounding Andy.

A few days before, he had a heart attack. It wasn't serious, they thought, and didn't believe surgery would be necessary. It was going to be routine, they said. April remembers those words clearly, and remembers the call saying that he had another heart attack at night, while she was gone. 

She can deal with  _one_ heart attack. He doesn't eat that well, despite every attempt she tries to get him to at least consider a salad once and a while, and his exercise regime basically consists of a walk to his car every once and a while or the very rare Johnny Karate show appearance. Beer and inaction caused it, probably, and April could deal with that. He could change his diet, and work out a little, and things could be fine and they would both die super gray and super in each other's arms while they slept or something. That's how it was supposed to happen. 

Now it's him, gray bearded and with a slightly wrinkled version of his old grin, lying in a hospital cot with a weakness in his grip that she hates. Now it's her, graying but still as energetic as before and he's slipping.

It all happens in an instant, and April can never forget it.

First he sighs, but it's fine he says. He says that things are gonna be okay, and when Sam comes in she shoots across the room and hugs the both of them tight. Slowly, the other two make their way into the family hug and it's missing a few but April needs it. He needs it too, probably.

"You guys are the best," Andy mutters, and April snuggles up to him the best she can. "Best family I could've gotten."

Then he smiles. And then, when April turns to look at one of the kids, she hears a faint catch of his breath. From there, it keeps escalating. April asks him if he's okay, or if he needs something, but Andy's fine. That's what he says. His grin falters for a second and he winces, but he says it's okay again. Rapid elevation of breath and before long, he's going into some kind of attack that April's never seen before. He's never reacted to anything like this, and it certainly isn't a heart attack. He shakes twice, like he's trying to fight off pain, and then laughs weak and with hurt there.

Jack runs out of the room, proving years of football in school and now professionally, urgent to find someone. April grabs his hand and he convulses again, and she doesn't know what to do. There isn't anything  _to_ do but sit there and watch and talk to him.

"Hey babe, I'm here," she says, quietly. He doesn't seem to respond, his eyes rolling back and closing and she squeezes harder where his hand seems to fail him. Some sort of alarm  _has_ to be going off somewhere that they can't hear. "Babe, calm down... it's gonna be okay! You're gonna be fine-"

He growls something, so insufferably tiny and frail that they can't understand any of it, and April kisses the back of his shaking hand. She wants to get up, find someone and bring them here. Have them make him better, anything. But it doesn't happen. The seizure, as she learns it was, keeps happening and April tries to steady him with Robbie's help. At some point she started crying, but she only knew that from Robbie telling her that her hands kept slipping on Andy's arm. All she remembers is trying to talk to him.

"I'm here," she says. No response. "Andy, it's gonna be okay! You're gonna be fine... you just gotta calm down, babe," she tries but it's fruitless. He won't talk, and his eyes have shut completely. He slows down the rapid shaking and his head relaxes, but his breathing is what kills her.

It's strong at first, his heart rate doing crazy things to some machine that April can barely make out as a blip on her radar, and she's hopeful that it's all calmed down. It'll be better, she tells herself. Then it weakens, and the little reassuring spikes on the monochrome screen shrink more and more over the course of a minute. Before long, she can barely tell he's breathing. His eyes aren't open, and his hand isn't grabbing hers anymore. 

For an instant, and she only remembers this on the worst days where her kids aren't talking to her and no one from the old Parks gang is there to comfort her, April flashes back to the first time she held Andy's hand. It was so _big_ and warm, and his fingers were so interested in the lines of her palm and where her knuckles jutted out that he spent about five minutes inspecting her whole hand before she called him a weirdo and made him blush. Then they kissed, and he wouldn't stop holding her hand and never did. Except for now.

"Hey babe, we never got divorced," she finds herself saying. Another line that apparently she said and only learned after her kids told her, years later. "We never went to Pawnee and had someone break us up. We coulda gotten a real wedding, too. Or, like, some random thing with, like, five people like we wanted to. It woulda been so cool. You gotta stick around for that, right?" She asks him, and he doesn't respond. April tries not to think about how he never responded, and honestly tries never to think about this evening at all. "You gotta stick around, babe. It's gonna be so... boring without you."

A long, outstanding  _beep_ fires into her ears but April doesn't pay attention to it. Only the warm lump of unmoving flesh and bone in her hand, a grin on his face. 

"Andy, I love you babe. I know we never... y'know, I never told you it enough," she chuckles and her faces is streaming with tears. "It's stupid, I told you like all the time. That still wasn't enough. You needed to know it more."

No response.

"Babe?"

No response. At the very least, April knows that the last thing he ever got to know was his family surrounding him, hugging him, and that he told them all they were the best he could have been given. It's a tiny salve for the wound that is Robbie trying to explain to Eddie and Victoria, once they arrive an hour later, what happened but just breaking into the same fits April was having; it's barely a cure for going to Jack's big game (a  _Super Bowl game!_ he had screamed to Andy on the phone, and both were so excited April couldn't help but smile with him) alone and wanting to cheer but just not having it in her. It wasn't enough for them to visit his grave after, all six of them, and regale the story of Jack's insane seventy-yard reception that brought them to victory. They drank, all of them, and April ended up with kids piled around her hugging her and promising that it'll be okay as she broke down in front of a stone bearing his name and not hers as well. It had  _Devoted husband and father_ engraved right there, but he was so much more.

He was living, breathing proof that everything would be okay in the world. He showed her that life was all right, and that you could make it what you wanted to be and that things would be okay as long as they were together.

A scarce reminder of this is that he knew his life had been incredible, just moments before he died with April's hand still clutching his and her mouth refusing anything other than a stark dryness and hars flood of tears and pain soon after. It's not enough, but at least she knew she loved him. At least he had that, and at least she got to be close to him one last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my real deal death headcanon for Andy. So, yeah.


	156. Time and Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested just yesterday, and I feel like I should touch on it. Instead of going to a giant climax of pure sadness, let's stick with a soft denouement for the week. Not particularly horrible but there's stuff in here that's not just peachy and fun.
> 
> Warning for talk of suicide ideation.

He first noticed it when they went to the Grand Canyon and April kept staring down and into the valley below, but then he just assumed that she was in as much awe of the thing as he was. It only made sense, since it was this big hole in the ground and awesome that she would think of him like that, and want to help him do almost all of that list, that she would just be lost in it all with him. 

"Hey, babe," he called out to her then, trying to get her attention because they actually had to leave soon.

It took April a few seconds to turn around and when she did she blinked, as if unsure that she was being spoken to, and shook her head lightly. "What?" she finally said quietly.

"C'mon, we gotta go," he had told her, smiling, and April took one last look at the canyon before sighing and walking up to him.

Andy just assumed she saw something cool in the distance, or that she was thinking about something. Sadly, he was right on the second account. He probably should have figured something was up when she refused to speak for a little while on the drive back. It wasn't super fun listening to music that she liked then, and he didn't even know why she insisted on listening to it but he wasn't going to push her. She just pleaded, more than anything, and before he could say anything else had changed the song. April grabbed his free hand and held it, and Andy wasn't about to toss it off but he definitely  _was_ confused at the urgency of it.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

A few weeks later, Andy tried asking her about it. For some reason it stuck in his head and he couldn't, for the life of him, get it out of there and he just needed to know what the hell was so cool that made her stare back, and what made her hold his hand like that and listen to her weird indie music, and why she kept much later hours in the last month. It wasn't that serious, but April stayed up even later and got very little or no sleep lately. She wasn't Leslie either, so she didn't use that time to get a ton of work projects done. April just sat up in bed with her laptop screen illuminating her face, watching random things on YouTube and scrolling endless blogs and websites, and every time he woke up after attempting to stay up with her and failing it was the same.

He tried, really. Sometimes, though, he liked to sleep a lot. Four o'clock in the morning was fine a night or two out of the week, probably three and sometimes four depending on how drunk he could get, but then it just began to take its toll on him and Andy had no idea how in the hell April was doing it. She didn't even sleep at work or anything, and it started to worry him. So, naturally, the first thing he did when woke up was open up his stupid mouth and ask her about it.

Groggy, with a scratchy voice, all that came out was, "Y'okay babe?"

April turned her head to look at him and it was the same person there, but he sensed something different. Not exactly hurt, or tired, but just weary. That woke him up the rest of the way, whether it was imagined or he actually saw it or it was all a figment of a sleep-deprived mind, and he sat up to scoot closer to her.

"You're all right?" he asked again, tossing an arm over her and, for once, April  _felt_ small. She was physically a whole head shorter than him, and thin, but she always felt huge to him. A big heart, big mind, and bigger ideas - and the most important person, thing, in his entire life - so it never seemed that way to him. It scared him."Babe?"

"I'm fine," she mumbled, but April stopped moving her hand on the trackpad. With only the blue-white light in the dark room, he kissed the side of her head and tried not to look past the the glasses she refused to wear out of the house (another super cute thing that she completely disagrees with) for those eyes again. "I said... I said I'm fine, Andy. I really am."

Andy nodded, hugging her closer with his arm. "Okay, um... but just, like, I wanna hear whatever you gotta say," he explained with another kiss to her head. "Um, if you're thinking something."

"Ew-"

"Babe, c'mon," he chuckled and nudged her with his side. "You can't fool me!"

April cracked a little smile and nodded. "Yeah, you're right," she let out a deep sigh and snuggled closer to him.

"You're good though?"

"Yeah," she reassured him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She was fine, and occasionally she would break down and hold something back from him. 

Andy tried, he really did, but she wouldn't open up to him. So, of course, he didn't make her and just reminded her that she could talk to him whenever. That  _was_ the whole point of marriage, after all - they were here to make the other person know how awesome they were and to do things that would make them even cooler. The breakdowns were never so bad that April couldn't function, but Andy learned intimately how to handle a panic attack over the course of another few years. It's weird, because he never thought that April could be brought down to something like that and then remembered that she was just a person too. An amazing person, but she was definitely still human, so Andy reminded her to talk to him whenever.

Again, he saw her shrink. Maybe not to the tiny, scared thing he saw at night after the Grand Canyon, but she was doing it still. Everything about April in the office and outwardly was an exaggeration, but this was just  _her_ and he wanted to know it so well that he could help her with it but April didn't want to let him in.

She didn't, in her words one particular night where she wouldn't open the bathroom door, want to become, "A burden."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Hours after that stupid prom, the couch carried his weight after Andy shooed Orin out of the house, his dog-watching no longer necessary, and April stayed in his lap.

"You wanna talk about... that stuff?" he offered.

"What stuff?"

"You said at the prom, y'know... you thought that we wouldn't go out or something?" he clarified, rubbing her arm and bringing April's whole body closer to him in a one-armed embrace.

"It's like you said," April shrugged. "Kids are stupid."

"Yeah, but... babe, is this like that stuff? The, um, panic attacks?" Andy bit the inside of his cheek and looked away from her like he was saying something wrong. "Sorry-"

"No, I... shoulda talked about this. I wanna talk about it," she whispered.

"Yeah?"

"It's important," April lifted her finger up between them like she was telling him the rules of the conversation. "Don't call it stupid, please."

"Never," he shook his head.

"Understand that I don't think like this anymore," April shook her head as well and spoke slowly. "I love you and this doesn't have anything to do with you."

"Now I'm kinda scared," Andy said with wide eyes, unsure where this was going.

"Andy, I am...  _was_ , y'know," she sighed and took a deep breath. Suddenly the air around them felt so thin and her voice was weak, like she was shrinking. Andy took one of her hands and kissed it, not wanting to interrupt her but needing to show her he was there. He kissed the back of her hand and her knuckles, and held onto the one with both of his. "It's stupid."

"Hey, you said not to call it stupid," Andy murmured and kept her hand close to his. 

April sighed and looked down, taking another breath. "Look, I don't like thinking about high school for more than just that stuff I said earlier, okay?"

"Sure," Andy nodded.

For a moment he wondered if she would explain, and didn't bother to push her any further. This was already more than he thought she would say, and really the conversation at Prom told him just enough to let Andy know to constantly remind her just how much he loved her. Really, it was kind-of ridiculous. They're together now, and it's the single greatest thing ever in the history of all the awesome things in the world that exist, and he wouldn't want to change that for anything, ever. They  _aren't_ in high school, so why bother thinking about that? So April willing to divulge anything else to him at all is amazing.

"I was serious, no one liked me in high school," she explained. Andy didn't know whether to say anything or let her continue, but April didn't give him the opportunity to say anything else when she continued. "I mean, that's fine. They all sucked anyways. It just sorta, y'know, sucked a lot. People would make fun of me, and that's cool because I made fun of them but sometimes they'd do it when I was trying to just live my life."

"Aw-"

"It's nothing serious, they just called me stupid names I don't even remember," April scoffed and rolled her eyes. "My parents didn't really  _get_ me either, y'know? My sister was stupid, and I basically had zero friends."

Andy sat further back in the couch and pulled April onto his lap so that she was straddling him there, looking down at him. He kept hold of her hand until his got absurdly sweaty and let go, but April quickly snaked hers back to his and didn't seem to mind all of the sweat. He kept them there, staring, and she continued.

"I thought it was fine, and that they were all dumb. I thought it was fine, y'know? I was fine," April chuckled, looked down, and then glanced up at him through her eyelashes. "I was fine. I told myself that, like, everyday. I told myself that they were the messed up ones. I was the cool one."

"April, you don't have to-"

"They were the problem, I wasn't. I kept telling myself that, and that they were the reason I hated everything so much," April's voice cracked and she looked down, sniffed, and when she looked back up her eyes were watering. She furrowed her brow, speaking slowly and concentrating on not crying. "I hated all of it, and I thought it was them. Why did they hate me so much? They never wanted to talk to me, or say hi, or anything. They just picked on me and called me the crazy girl, and the crazy bitch, and creepy. I thought it was cool."

"Babe, seriously, it's okay," Andy tried to interrupt her, smiling, but April was clearly letting  _everything_ out. She wasn't stopping, and she made a strangled noise, her face contorting in a strange, sickening grimace. Her nose scrunched, lips curled, and her head shook in confusion.

"Why did they hate me so much? I thought it was them," April gave a dark, weak laugh and then nodded. "Then I realized it  _was_ me. I was the problem, y'know? I was the common thing in all of these situations, and I... hated myself, all of a sudden."

"April-"

"It was me, all along. I didn't talk to anyone. I didn't make fun of them anymore. I didn't do anything, ever," April wasn't looking at him anymore, as if caught in a reminiscence that she didn't know how to get out of. She stared down at their hands together and kept speaking. "I thought I knew the answer, and it was so dumb but I thought about it. I really wanted to do it, Andy."

"Do what?" he asked, confused. 

April chuckled, humorless and with a sniffle as a tear fell down her cheek. "Kill myself," she said calmly.

Everything was silent for a second, and April wouldn't stop laughing that weak little titter. She sat there in his lap, Andy's hands around hers, and laughed while he tried to process that thought. He tried to figure out how on Earth someone like this would think that's the answer, and he wondered what  _really_ brought her there. April was stronger than that, she wouldn't let some dumb teenage bullies bring her down like that, would she? Then again, he didn't think that mattered. Sometimes things broke through, even if they never really did for him he guessed that sometimes April's hard-as-hell exterior had seams that could be chipped away at or cut into.

"Andy?" she asked, as if she'd done it already, and he came back to the scene at hand. "Andy-"

"I love you babe, and I'm so glad you told me that," Andy started, pulling her closer so that she was practically sitting on his stomach and her face was closer to his. "If you ever... ever, ever,  _ever_ feel like that again I'm always here and you're the best, and you're so brave, and I love you. So much, like you don't even-"

"Andy," she laughed and sniffed again. "I told you, I don't think like that anymore."

"I know, but... I just wanna make sure you know I'm here," Andy shrugged and gave her a little smirk that she thankfully returned, albeit with a much smaller wisp of a smile. 

"Thanks."

"Seriously, whatever makes you feel better," Andy explained further, because really he did need to make sure she knew that. "If you wanna talk for, like, hours or days or you wanna go get one of those man-cure things you like I won't even buy one of those super huge burgers you tell me not to eat, and you can go do that and it'll be cool, right?"

April didn't speak, instead staring at him, smiling, and she nodded. "You're the best husband ever," she whispered. 

"I'm super serious," he told her again, afraid she  _still_ didn't know.

"Me too," she told him. "The best."

"And you are the best wife-" he tried to finish his sentence but was met with a kiss.

She told him that she doesn't think about it, but Andy will never, ever stop telling her that she can always talk to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7.27.2015 - I'm sorry, but I've recently hit a mental snag. The abuse is too much. I literally cannot take it anymore, and I don't want to look at my writing and feel horrible and gross anymore.
> 
> I'm putting this on hold for a few days.


	157. Intimate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey! We're back in the swing of things after an... interesting week. Since the week before that was purely angst, let's not do that for a second, okay?
> 
> This was requested anonymously on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) as A/A from other characters' perspectives.

It all starts half by accident and half by reminiscence. Out in the courtyard, children play and April's busy corralling the triplets and the Perkins-Traegers without anyone running off into the vast unknown of City Hall with Andy sitting by Jack after a tiring game of tag with seven other kids. Leslie notes to herself that April can seemingly handle almost any number of children, and she silently wonders where that breaking point is. Where April's breaking point is, really. There were a lot of mysteries about her not-really-but-basically-daughter, but after barely having to convince her to babysit triplets and the whole fear of motherhood thing this shouldn't be.

Inside, everyone's gathered around telling jokes and stories. Donna and Tom are back by where her old desk used to be, chatting it up and laughing about something, and Ann is laughing with Ben as Chris tells some likely _amazing_ story. Even Garry is around, saying something to Ron who just looks tickled to be wearing that silly uniform. Leslie takes it all in, enjoying this last gathering. Hopefully it won't truthfully be the last, but who knows.

She's peering out the window, looking at April walk over to her husband with Sonia just behind her like always - out of all of her children, Sonia took to April the most and, honestly, Leslie couldn't have hoped for a better role model (though Ruth Bader Ginsberg or even her namesake, Sotomayor, would have been nice.) April leans down and gives Andy a kiss, and all of the children make faces at them. Leslie doesn't realize it until she's back in the central room that she's smiling.

"Hey," Ben walks over to her with a champagne glass in his hand. He's all smiles, face a little red from the laughter before, and his voice is soft. "I'm surprised you could go in your office without breaking down."

"One step at a time," Leslie answers with a chuckle and a large gulp from her own glass. "Y'know, I was looking out there-" she points behind her with her glass at the kids and the Ludgate-Dwyers. "And I just saw the future, y'know? Everything I worked for here, and I wanna work for is out there."

"Even April and Andy?" Ben jokes, knowing that the two of them are practically their surrogate children. 

"Oh God, you should've seen the kids out there. April kissed him and they all freaked out," Leslie says with that same smile from before on her face. It's still hilarious to her. "They don't even know the half of it."

"No they don't," Ben states knowingly. 

"Oh right, you were-"

"Let me just say they got a lot of free blankets and I don't want to think about it ever again," Ben brushes aside, downing the rest of his champagne before chuckling. "That seems like forever ago."

"Yeah, well not exactly forever ago we had to peel those two apart on our couch," Leslie says with another laugh.

"Leslie, I  _ate_ at that dining table at their house," he shudders.

"And I  _worked_ at  _my_ desk," she points back into her old office.

"You guys think you had it bad?" Ann appears with Chris at her side, apparently overhearing the conversation. "April would text me telling me that she was making out with Andy."

"With photographic evidence," Chris adds. "Thankfully, it was never more than that. Right?"

"Dude, I don't wanna see any of his junk touching any of her junk," Ann mutters sardonically, taking a sip of her glass. Everyone's starting to crowd around the courtyard-facing windows. "Ever. God, I'm afraid she'll send me that stuff  _now_."

"Y'all are lucky," Donna butts in, leaving Tom behind to stare at an insanely shiny, clearly expensive, watch. "The best I got was a little peep show when they were in the conference room."

Everyone looks at Donna, confused. She just looks at them like they're the crazy ones. "What?" she asks.

"The best?" Leslie asks, a smile curling her lips while Ann scrunches her nose in disgust. 

"I invited them several times to a swinger's group I was into, but they never showed," Donna shrugs her shoulders. Chris looks positively mortified and Ben shakes his head. "I figured they were into that sorta thing. The hot ones never are." She sets her glass down and sighs. "So, anyone got any  _juicy_ stories they wanna share? Or am I stuck with one memory and some creative imagination?"

"No thanks, Donna," Tom appears and Garry's following him now. Apparently Ron wants nothing to do with the conversation, instead looking out at the kids now sitting down and having what could only be inane, pleasant conversation. "My girl April? I don't wanna hear  _nothing_ about what she does with that big man."

"Really, you and April never-?"

"Gross, no," Tom scrunches his face up. "She moisturizes her hands _once a day_. How can I be with someone that has no care for their pores like that?"

"She told me she uses the blood of the innocents," Ann remarks.

"Which is April-speak for Jergens," Leslie adds. When people look at her, unsure who to believe, she has to clarify. "I bought some random lotion for her once and she sent me a text asking for more of it and not to tell anyone that she actually uses it."

"Nobody got skin like hers and use  _blood_ ," Donna chuckles and Tom joins in. No one else seems to enjoy the joke as much. "Wait, Garry... you have to have seen something. C'mon, let your old friend in on some secrets! I've only got one man now."

"Oh, I just don't feel right saying anything," Garry says with a pleasant smile and a gentle chuckle. He waves them off, but everyone is urging him on. Donna prods again and he laughs, but then Ann shakes her head and walks away to join Ron in his complete absolution of the conversation. "I mean, I  _have_ walked in on them doing several things."

"Yes, now the details," Donna crosses her arms and stares at him, expectant.

"Oh, that'd be crass. I never stayed anyways," he says with a sigh. "There was one time... y'know what, nevermind that."

"No, tell us!" Tom taps his arm with the back of his hand playfully, otherwise known as the most physical contact he'd give Garry that whole day.

"It's very private, and I promised Andy-"

"C'mon!" a loud chorus greets him and he sighs, broken by peer pressure.

"Okay, well... one day, I think it was after some big forum while Leslie was gone-" he points at her with his glass and takes a huge gulp of it, not finishing it but barely leaving any in the basin. "I think April was running some of your meetings, right? Well, I found her, um, crying."

Everyone stops their chuckles and chatter and keep their eyes fixated on Garry. For the first time in a while, he doesn't just lose focus and start babbling nonsense.

"Andy was there, too, and she was shaking. It was so strange. I've never seen her like that," Garry shrugs his shoulders and continues. "She yelled at me to go away, and usually she was mean to me but she sounded... I dunno, different."

"I don't think we should be talking about this," Leslie says, looking down into her glass. 

"Once while I was staying with them," Ben adds, "she wouldn't get out of the shower for about a half an hour and when she came out her eyes were all red and puffy. She wouldn't even be mean to me and just stole my popcorn."

"She stole your popcorn?" Donna asks, a curious tilt to her brow.

"Yeah, she microwaved it without my permission but I didn't want to say anything."

"D'you know what it was?" Leslie asks him, intrigued now. "Why she was... in the shower?"

"I didn't ask," Ben shrugs.

The room goes silent, solemn. Lost in it for a few moments, after a small conversation about finding them doing it everywhere, the suddenness of remembering that there human emotions behind those people brought them to something else. Leslie never asked April why she wanted hugs when Andy was gone in London, mostly because she was so happy to give them over though also because April just had something in her voice, in her requests. It was the same thing with her phone calls and texts, and emails, and basically every kind of communication they could have. 

Suddenly, Ron appears the outside of the ring and gives everyone a once over.

"I'd rather we not speak on this topic, again. I think everyone can agree with me?" Ron adds, his hands at his belt and a strong, stubborn grimace on his face underneath the moustache. Everyone nods and takes the drinks they can.

Some day, Leslie will ask him what he's seen. She'll try, but knowing him Leslie doubts that she'll ever get much out of him. Then again, the relationship April and Ron have is far different from the rest of them. Silent, understanding. It was something Leslie didn't really have with her, but that was okay.

Turning around to look back out at the courtyard, Andy's got little Jack in his arms and is playing a game of airplane with him while Ron's daughters giggle at the tall goof that April's grinning at. With her arms crossed, she watches her husband spin their child around once more before setting him back into his stroller. Andy looks dizzier than the little boy, and April slinks over to put an arm around him and kiss him with a little more passion now that the other kids are paying less attention. Leslie smiles and then turns around, walking over to get Ann and Ron for the group photo.


	158. April and Tom, and Kids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Missed yesterday because of some work crap and a resulting total lack of sleep (about 7 hours between the last three days, yay!)
> 
> I'll make it up to you with some "Tom visits Andy and April in Washington" fic.

Tom was only staying for a few days for a book tour he had around the area, and after he saw the bedlam of the Ludgate-Dwyer house he made sure to get a hotel room. It wasn't so much that the house was a mess, but he'd come over to visit for an hour or so and try to get Andy to help him set up some stuff at the venue (which, even still, he did agree to because he's still the same eagerly helpful Andy Dwyer) and then a kid would fly past him. April would be playing with one of her daughters and she'd ask him if he wanted to hold her and, really, he didn't. There would be toys everywhere that dug into his feet or his shoes, a huge cat nearly attacked him, and the edifices of paper drawn for April and smeared with red handpaint like blood were hanging everywhere.

It was terrifying. Not that he hated kids, but his jacket definitely hated their sticky fingers. Even worse, one of them, was  _taller_ than him. How demoralizing was that? To Tom? Being shorter than a thirteen year old girl may as well have been a death sentence.

The other thing that got to him was April. Sitting down with her after a pizza party that he thankfully missed - five kids, Andy, and pizza were involved so you do the math - Tom meant to ask her if she had any tips for his next big idea. Well, the idea for the idea. The name wasn't even invented yet, which as far as Tom's concerned is when the project really gets kicked off. No name? No sale. He picked up a slice of the leftover pizza with two wads of napkins, April shaking her head at him with that same old glare. Old, even. She wasn't  _old_ but she was old. Tom could literally call her a grandma at some point, but for now he just remarked that there's gray in her hair and even more in Andy's. He already has an emergency supply of men's hair dye.

"Y'know what I always say," April said, nodding at him.

"Squawk like a bird and paint myself yellow?" Tom said with a raised eyebrow, used to her absolutely ridiculous ideas. That was half the fun of April, those absurd suggestions.

"I think it'd be way cooler than a book," April leaned back in her chair and raised her hands, drawing out a billboard sign with them in the air. "This just in: local man goes insane writing book, becomes Big Bird."

"Yeah, I think I'm gonna give that one a hard pass," Tom told her. April nodded in agreement. "Where's Andy? Maybe he can give me a flash of brilliance for my next book."

"He's putting the kids to bed," she looked over shoulder and peered into the hallway. Turning her head, she listened intently and then nodded as if understanding. "Yep, he's singing them Johnny Karate's Goodnight Hug and Stuff Song."

"Wow," Tom said with a mild chuckle. 

"It's really sweet," she shrugged her shoulders.

"So you're... into this sorta thing?" Tom asked and looked around the house. Drawings, report cards, all the usual up on their fridge. A semi-clean kitchen. A house, a family. All of them were things that he just never thought of with regards to April.

"What? Washington?"

"Kids," Tom clarified. Partly, he was wondering why he had told Ron all those years ago about Lucy and kids. Now that he sees all the work (and it is work, and even though April clearly has to put in less work with them than Andy she's still a mother) and care, and  _money_ , and how much of his own life would be turned towards them, he doesn't know.

"Oh," April looked taken aback. "I guess Andy really wanted kids and I wanted kids eventually."

"Is that good, though? Like, the eventually part? I heard you and Leslie had a big talk and-"

"Look, I don't wanna go into why I didn't want to do it first, okay?" April deflected him and he knew to back down. Personal reasons. Emotional stuff. That wasn't really a big player in their friendship. "I just wanted to at some point, and it makes Andy so happy and that makes me happy. Why're you asking?"

"I dunno, man. Lucy doesn't want kids either so-"

"So that's that," April shrugged her shoulders again and looked at him like he sprouted an extra head. "Dude, don't have kids. Neither of you want them."

"Yeah, I just... everyone else is having them. I guess I was just curious what the big deal was," Tom pursed his lips. "Andy  _loves_ kids."

"Yes he does," April said with a smile. "And he's a great dad, but that's Andy. That's not you, Tom."

"You saying I can't be a good dad?"

"That is exactly what I'm saying," April smirked and he chuckled.

"It changes you, too. Like you. You're different."

"What?"

"I dunno, you're just... more caring? Like, where's the mummies and the zombies and the vampires? I thought you'd give your kids all of that," Tom looked around the kitchen for his claims.

"It's a kitchen Tom. We watch horror movies all the time and when they draw scary stuff I say I like it, and they're happy," she scrunched her nose up. "I'm not different, by the way."

"You totally are!" he fought back.

"Just because I'm more open to my kids than stupid people doesn't mean I'm different," April argued and folded her arms. "I love them, okay? They're my kids, so I'm not gonna be mean to them. God, Tom. What'd you expect? I was going to prank a little kid with thumbtacks and super glue?"

"Man, I still remember that day. Garry couldn't sit down for a week after that."

"Probably because he had a cushion full of tacks glued to his butt," she said with a stifled laugh.

"Honey!" the voice of Andy crept out of the hallway along with the tall, imposing figure. Minus the growing beergut. Well, Tom isn't sure about that. The beergut might just add to the whole white guy intimidation factor and he'll have to figure that out later. "Oh, hey Tom! I didn't know you were sleeping over. Oh my gosh, you gotta see what Robbie-"

"He's not sleeping over, babe," she laughed and Andy's face visibly fell. "We were just talking."

"About what?"

Tom took a look at the two of them. Despite the wear age had taken on them, and honestly it wasn't that much because Andy was still a smooth looking guy for as oafish and unsanitary he used to be, and April barely looked different than when she was in her early twenties. That was partially due to him, though. Tom had practically forced her to take a spa day a long time and ever since, he's told to just get her "one of those gift cards" for her birthday. For all of this, kids and age and life, they weren't that different. They probably were and he just didn't see it anymore, which he tried not to think about because deep, deep, deep down he does miss that old crew just a little bit, but April was busy staring at Andy like he'd just given her a billion dollars and Andy was smiling at her like she had no kids, a stable financial career, and wanted to spend the rest of their lives in Cabo. 

Maybe he was projecting a little.

"Just askin' April about how the hell she can keep her skin looking this good after so many kids," he turned the subject and Andy just grinned.

"I think she uses that-"

"Mud from the backyard," April finished for him. That was one thing Tom was never allowed to buy for her. Beauty products were totally off the table because he would probably buy her something with glitter and vinegar, or whatever the hell he had on that day when he was covered in that stuff. That's what April said at least. 

He shook his head and stood up. Picking his jacket off of the back of the chair he looks at the two of them once and sighs. "Y'know, some things never change," he said. "Be good, Andy! Treat those kids right."

That was the last time he ever talked to either of them about kids, specifically. Tom wasn't even on the fence anymore, and that was okay. He couldn't likely be happy with them, but at least the Ludgate-Dwyers had their not-exactly-little family and were doing just fine though.


	159. That One Time Andy Learned April Likes Girls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a lazy upload because it was a thing I've already written on tumblr, but I think people really liked it and I kinda liked it.
> 
> This was requested anonymously.

There are a few things Andy thinks are more boring than grocery shopping: lists, people that work at grocery stores, and people that make lists and force them to go grocery shopping. At this point it’s not even Ben doing it, since April’s taken his advice to heart and they actually seem to be doing that “growing up” thing with more ease, year after year. 

With her, it’s actually kind-of fun. It’s not just dishes, since they’re going to draw all over the plates in marker and learn that permanent marker doesn’t taste especially great on grilled cheese. He also got, like, super sick after that and it wasn’t awesome either. So, really, they both put up with it because otherwise they’ll both be using the same fork and April eats super slow (and cute, of course, because her nose does this little scrunching thing and he does think  _that’s_ adorable) and it’s like a fun adventure they get to figure out together.

At the grocery store, it’s different because it’s  _so boring_  and Andy makes sure to bring it up all the time.

“Babe, can we at least go look at guitars after this or something,” Andy asks, picking up the Kale cereal April picked out and grimacing. 

“As long as we can stop to look at the cemetery for, like, an hour,” April promises with a smile as they get to setting things on the little conveyer belt leading to the register. “Or we could go graffiti City Hall with ‘April + Andy forever.’”

“Awesome,” Andy nods and she chuckles.

“Or-”

“Oh, hey April!” a chipper little voice breaks into their conversation and April whips her head around to stare at the source. 

Andy does too and she’s a shortish girl with almost golden blonde hair, a wide toothy smile that just exudes something that tells him she’s nice, and a rather long, protuberant nose. She gives April a wave, nothing more than a short spasm of her hand, and then nearly hops on her feet like there’s no one else she’d rather see than April. Andy decides that  _this_ is the weirdest part of the day and not having to explain to Ben why his sheets are missing.

It was for a cape for Andy’s new character.

“Hey, Rose,” April sounds less clinically bored than usual when she says it. Andy only ever hears that when she talks to a select few people, so this Rose person must be awesome. “You’re working at a Kroger’s now?”

“Yeah, college wasn’t as great for me as it was for you!” Rose says but there’s no malice there. Even Andy’s a little put off by her sheer joy. “I mean, I did get my degree a year before you so there is that. It just turns out that people aren’t exactly looking for English Literature majors.”

April gives a dark sort of laugh and Rose giggles a little. The whole atmosphere is so weird, and when Rose asks who Andy is he doesn’t really register it until April speaks up.

“This is Andy,” she smiles at him and then at her. “He’s my husband.”

“Wow, really?” Rose says with a shocked look and then laughs it off, which Andy learns is probably her way of dealing with things judging by how  _much_ she does it. “That’s so cool to hear! I didn’t think you were the marrying type?”

“Well, he makes me, like, really happy,” April explains and it’s so odd for her to say it so plainly to someone else. That’s usually reserved for him, and Andy is starting to get more and more confused by the second. 

“That’s even better!” 

By the time they’ve paid for everything, April says goodbye (April Ludgate saying goodbye to someone) and Andy has to ask her: “So, who’s Rose?”

“A girl I dated in high school,” April says with a shrug like she didn’t just say she dated a girl to him.

“What? Wait, what?” Andy does a double-take at the car, putting groceries in the backseat. “Wait, babe… you dated-?”

“A girl,” April nods. “So?”

“I didn’t know you were a lesbian,” he says nonchalantly.

“I’m not a… dude,  _bisexuality_ ,” April taps his chest with her fingers and he chuckles. “You know what that is, c’mon.”

“I know, I was just… did you like it?” he smirks and April shakes her head when he laughs.

She gives him another playful smack on the arm before putting the milk in the backseat. “Seriously?”

“I mean-”

“Look, we dated for like a year after she stuck up for me at some bullies and she’s not the worst person ever. You never asked me about my old girlfriend so it never came up,” April shrugs it off again and Andy walks the cart back with the thought running in his head. Well, that and April riding in the cart as he goes faster and faster and runs it into a pile of them. 

When they’re back in the car, she gives him a smile but he wants to keep talking about it.

“So you like boys and girls?”

“Yep,” April nods.

“That’s awesome,” Andy nods. “You’ve got so much love in you, cup-”

“No,” April says, pleading for him not to use the petname that she half-loves and half wants him to never say in public or risk a serious amount of pouting, and shakes her head.

“-Cake,” he finishes, giving her a lazy, eyes-drooped, grin because he knows just how much love she has in her. It’s crazy to him that people think she hates everything when she so clearly loves him. And girls.

“Ugh,” April rolls her eyes but there’s a smile there and that’s all that matters to him.

“Y’know,” Andy starts, realizing something odd and familiar about Rose, “she kinda reminds me of Leslie.”

April turns and gives him a vicious glare. She actually turns her whole body in the seat and stares at him the entire drive home as some sort of punishment for what he just said. So, yeah, maybe comparing her ex-girlfriend to someone who acts like April’s mom wasn’t the best idea (though it doesn’t seem to matter later when they’re having sex) but at least now Andy knows that she’s got even more love in her heart than he ever knew before. Now that’s pretty awesome.


	160. Breakfast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a silly little thing, requested anonymously on tumblr.

"Mom said not to play with that," Sam pouted, looking up uncomfortably at Robbie poking at mysterious, glowing buttons. They all blink after Robbie presses them, then a smooth,  _disgusting_ smelling liquid pours out of the machine. "Robbie, mom said  _not to play with_ -"

"I'm not! We're making mom  _breakfast_ ," Robbie explained, dashing over to the now sizzling bacon. That too smelled disgusting, but mostly because the pieces were charred and kind-of horrifying to look at, what with their crusty bits of fat no longer thick and delectable and now just thin wafers of pork. 

"Why?"

"Because she's sick, silly!" Robbie answered back.

"Why?"

"Because dad got sick."

"You guys can't make breakfast, only daddy can!" Sam said loudly, offended at the idea of someone other than big, chubby again, goofy Andy making a mountain of bacon and piles of eggs.

"I think I got this," Jack claimed all-too-proudly with a beaming smile as the fork in his hand  _scraped_ across the bottom of the metal pan he was frying eggs poorly in.

Jack was busying himself with the eggs, and at least those looked okay in comparison. The babies were still asleep, well three year olds but Sam always thought of them as her baby sisters, and the older kids were destroying the kitchen on their way to making a perfect breakfast on their mother's day back to work. After someone caught the flu -  _dad_ \- it spread like wildfire throughout the house, and April took the heaviest beating from it to the point where she took a few days off of work leading up to the weekend. A hospital visit that terrified little Sam, some strong medicine, and lots of bed rest and patient kids and Andy, and she was just about recovered.

In the meantime, Sam was holding her favorite mangled, stuffed rabbit and watching in awe as her brother and sister danced around the kitchen attempting to cook. Bacon grease spattered the stovetop, and a broken egg that just wouldn't crack right was still sitting out in the open on the countertop. Two little Keurig canisters lay wasted after Robbie tried opening one up and dumping it into a cup, and then another open and put into the slot, until she finally got it right on the third try. Toast sprang out from the toaster, completely raw and barely toasted whatsoever, and Sam saw this as her opportunity to do something. 

Trying to reach up and grab it, she could barely touch the tip of the toast before she had to sit back down and walk over to the island in the middle of the kitchen, pouting, and make her way onto a stool.

"Taste test!" Robbie shouted, mimicking her father. Every time anything was remotely done, and whether or not it needed an actual test, he would scream that out and kids would come running to have a few bites of the breakfast he was making  _way_ better than her brother and sister.

Still, Jack jumped to the occasion and Sam hopped off of the stool as quickly as she had gotten on. The bacon was atrocious, far too crispy and charred, but the look on the cook's face was so proud.

"Eww!" Sam yelled.

The smile dropped and she turned back around. The coffee, black in the travel mug they always saw their mom with, was chilling by now. 

It took another few minutes, and likely spurned on by the scream for taste test, before a bedraggled April made her way out. Hair stuck to her forehead and an old Mouse Rat t-shirt five sizes too big for her draped over her to match the miniature shirt Leslie made for Wabbit the Rabbit. 

"Morning, ma!" Jack yelled out and a tiny, albeit confused, smile rose April's lips.

"What're you guys doing?" she asked, ruffling her hair and peeking into the coffee mug. Two plates lay on the island, both covered with napkins just like dad did.

"Breakfast!" Robbie shouted, spreading her arms out into a hug. She walked forward and buried herself in April's shirt and belly. "Happy Getting Better day!"

"What?"

"That's what dad called it," Robbie explained, looking up at her mom. "Um, then he said he wanted to sing you a special song for adults and that we had to go to bed."

April smirked and rolled her eyes. "Did he, now?"

"Uh huh."

"Well, you guys made-?"

April leaned forward and when she moved the napkins off of the bacon, saw the gruesome, charred sight underneath. She stopped and then sighed before reaching forward to pick up a piece. It nearly fell apart in her hands. By the time she had taken her first bite, and by bite April meant placed it in her mouth and let it crumble in there, the taste was just as bad as she feared. Still, she winced through it and smiled. When she settled in for black coffee (her least favorite thing in the world, and one day she'll explain to them how to put sugar and creamer in) and blacker bacon, undone toast and poorly cooked eggs, Andy was stumbling his way towards the smell of food in his favorite sweater and sweatpants.

"Whoa, who made breakfast?" Andy grumbled, already giving Robbie a brief hug and staring down at the food with hungry eyes. April will never understand how he can eat the things he does.

"We did," Jack pointed at Robbie and then himself.

"Dude, it looks so good!" he chuckled and grabbed two pieces of crumbly bacon before stuffing it in his mouth. Speaking through food, he said, "It's  _amazing_!"

He leaned down and gave Robbie a high five, and then Jack, and then Sam. April couldn't help but smile through it, despite the watery eggs she was eating, because, really, this was amazing. The twins would wake up soon, their abhorrent sleep schedules broken and rebroken multiple times already, and then April would have to say goodbye to everyone when she went to work and it would all  _suck_ to know that they weren't going to see her for hours, and that she wasn't going to see them. Still, sitting with Robbie in her lap, eating their breakfast while Andy continually heaped praise on them for it - and then later, as April learned, gave them a little Johnny Karate branded lesson on how to clean up a kitchen that he learned from Leslie Knope - just meant that the feeling of wanting to smile never left April's mind.

She didn't fight it either.


	161. Birthday Cakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another silly request, but this time about Andy's birthday and kids.

In the whole wide world of things that April definitely doesn't like to do, the one that she never thought she'd actually do a spin on was baking. It wasn't, like, a constant thing. She simply didn't have time to be doing it, plus it would be all sorts of sweets and insane cookies that Andy would devise up (though, honestly his cinnamon and brown sugar molasses cookies were great) but it was, weirdly enough, fun. The part that was fun, actually, was doing it with her kids.

Baking years ago for a bunch of college kids was mostly just to apologize to Crazy Craig, and now it was like she had something to bond over with Jack. Robbie didn't like it so much, though she liked squirting the icing on the cake or cupcakes they might make. The rest of the kids had zero interest in cooking of any kind, but Jack seemed to be into it and the things she had to share with him over the years dwindled. Andy had football with him, and his siblings were around him often when he wasn't out of the house, so April settled on baking.

"How old is dad?" Jack asks, looking at the flat top of the round, chocolate cake ready for the icing.

"Fifty-five," April answers without thinking about it, tossing the batter dish in the sink for when she actually cares about washing it.

"Whoa," he mutters.

"What?"

"Dad's, like, really old," he says dumbly. April just shakes her head and chuckles.

"Yeah, me too," she scoffs.

"Not as old as dad," he says, again obviously, but she smiles and kisses the back of his head. "When does he get home?"

"He's just visiting your Uncle Ben while he's in town," she sneers. Then, in unison, April and her son say, "Dork."

With a shared smirk at the little joke, April goes to gather everyone for the decoration. By the time they come back, Jack's finished his touch of exquisite icing-calligraphy with a huge  _Happy Birthday Dad!_ and Robbie adds a little action figure she has of a man in a karate gi - a relic of a toy that April found and painted up to look like Johnny Karate years ago that Robbie took an extreme liking to - along with Sam's intricate, finger-drawn design of their large family in the icing above the lettering. The twins take advantage of April leaving the room for a moment and, when she comes back, finds four hand prints around the edge of the cake, spiking the icing up and making the whole thing look just bizarre.

And, really, it's gorgeous in all of its grotesque randomness from the toy to the messed up icing, to the now misshapen lettering, and the candles yet to be added would just make it more of a mess. She wants to laugh and shake her head, and be grossed out, and it could never be more perfect.

"What about yours, ma?" Jack asks.

"Yeah, you need to decorate it too!" Lucy pipes up.

"Decorate!" Victoria repeats after her, lifting her hands up in fists as if in victory.

"Yeah, like put skulls or a vampire on it!" Robbie offers, as if April needs ideas. Still, she considers all of them. The idea that pops into her head immediately is great.

By the time Andy gets home, the cake is waiting on the kitchen table and all of the kids bombard him with hugs the moment he's in their line of sight. Or, really, after he shouts for all of them. April greets him with a brief kiss and a question about how lame Ben is doing, and Andy answers that he's just as lame as usual but he wished him happy birthday so that was cool, too. That easily led into the kitchen where she presented him with the mess in front of him.

Instead of on a single dish, April separated each portion of the cake out into seven separate pieces on seven different plates, with Andy's much, much larger than the rest. Stools and chairs were brought up around the little island, and they all sat down at their plates.

"What's this?" Andy asks, confused.

"Your birthday cake, babe," April says, pointing at everyone's piece.

"Um, that's more than one cake," he says confidently. Jack muffles a chuckle.

"No, dad. It's your cake and all our stuff we did to it," Robbie clarifies for him, pointing at the toy on top of hers. The twins' pieces are little chunks of their hand prints.

"Oh my God, babe. Did you make this?" Andy asks, walking over to her and leaning down for a deeper kiss that mortifies everyone else in the room. "You are so, so awesome."

"The kids gave me an awesome idea too," she shrugs. April takes her glasses off and sets them next to her plate, and then ties her hair up behind her. "C'mon eat your cake with us. Robbie take your glasses off, you too Andy."

When he sits down, all the kids present their little variations of decoration. Andy thinks they're all as awesome as the others and says as much. He probably has a favorite, but he doesn't say as much. Instead he just calls it all awesome, his family awesome, and that his kids are so amazing he just might cry. He quickly quiets down with the prospect of cake in front of him, but is confused by one thing.

"Um, where are all the forks and stuff?" Andy asks, scouting around the table for his silverware.

"You said you always wanted to have a cake and just shove your face in it," April says, taking a deep breath and looking at all of their cakes. Robbie takes her toy off of the icing, setting it on the table, and Sam looks wistfully at the art she drew and then seems to change her mind about something, quickly shifting to a little smile. "So, yeah."

"Wow, really? You always said the kids weren't s'posed to-"

"It's fun," April interrupts. "Right?"

"It's gonna be  _awesome_!" Robbie says, and Jack nods with her.  _  
_

"Happy Birthday daddy!" Victoria tells him, and Andy takes that as his signal.

"Shove your face in the stupid cake already," April smirks and watches his face burn with delight as he does exactly that.

When his face plants with a soft  _thump_ in the cake, he giggles and comes back up with chocolate smeared all over his face. The twins follow suit, and then the rest of the kids do it as well . They sink their faces in the cake and come up with laughter, taking chunks off of each other's faces along with Andy, who wipes at their faces to taste the cake and groans appreciatively.

"Babe, you haven't done it yet!" Andy complains.

"Yeah, ma! You gotta do it too," the kids say to her, expectant.

So she does, and when she comes up, April can barely see anything other than chocolate cake. It's ridiculous and she can barely smell anything else, but everyone is laughing, and shouting, and giddy, and Andy takes the cake from by her cheeks and puts the bits in his mouth with a grin. Part of April wishes she saved a piece of the cake for another, late-night recreation of this little face-planting. Then again, the next half hour or so is spent taking the bits of crusted cake from each other and eating it, Sam sitting next to April and mostly sharing with her, and the other kids each having their little cake fights that ends up with brown cake flung halfway across the room and dirtying up the floor and counters.

Icing smears all over the walls and floor, and, really, the immense messiness of it all makes Andy smile so  _damn_ much that April knows this was exactly the right spin to put on the cake. He smiles, and his face says as much. Leaning down again, he kisses past the chocolate, or through it and with it she isn't sure, and they smile against each other as the kids make yet another sound of disgust.

 


	162. Roomies and Towels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by Rotashark on ffnet as "A/A interaction with Ben around S4."

The last thing Ben needs is to miss work.

He's been all sorts of a mess for  _weeks_ about this whole thing and he just wants to take a hot shower, get into some mildly uncomfortable clothes, go stare at spreadsheets and make phone calls for eight hours, and leave. Work is like a strange relaxant for him, because for one reason Ben simultaneously hates being there - Leslie - there is another reason for why he loves being there, also Leslie. But now? Now, he's got none of that. He's just a slouch on a couch watching yet another Doctor Who DVD because he's bored out of his mind and there's nothing better to do.

Also, he's pretty sure he doesn't want to go in the bathroom yet. Every once and a while a little  _noise_ escapes and he takes a deep breath, considers double homicide, and then groans. He lifts up the remote again, turns the volume as high as it'll go on the crummy TV, and sighs again.

When they leave the bathroom, and yes  _they_ leave the bathroom and don't even seem to care that Ben's around (though he does notice April walks with Andy mostly covering her even though she's clearly fully dressed again), he gets up to go take his turn.

"Sorry dude, all the hot water's out," Andy shrugs.

Ben tries to think up something clever to say in his growing agitation. All that comes out is another deep sigh.

"Yeah, we used up  _all_ of it," April says and stares up at her husband. Ben kind-of wants to throw up.

"So, um, yeah. Sorry, bro!" Andy taps his shoulder playfully and Ben slumps his shoulders.

"Gross," April scrunches her nose up at Ben.

"What?" he finally asks, his voice grouchy and tired and all sorts of unused to being used.

"You're depressed," she says, pointing at him as if convicting him of a crime.

"No I'm not," he deflects instantly but doesn't mind letting the thought getting into his head.

"Are too," April fires back childishly. Ben has no answer for that.

"You should, like, take a super long bath. Or, oh! You can, like, eat a bunch of ice cream or mac n' cheese and cuddle... that always works fo-  _ow!_ " Before he can finish, April smacks his arm. "I mean, I hear it's nice." _  
_

"Sure," Ben nods, confused. He glances at April who only gives him a brief flicker of a look, but the red-hot daggers there tell him to look away. A little scared, and mostly tired, he returns to Andy. "Did you guys at least do the towels last night?"

"Oh, yeah!" Andy has that same, toothy look of exasperation whenever he forgets something. "Babe, I told you we forgot something."

"We didn't forget it, I just thought it was lame," April taps his arm with her whole right side and looks absolutely  _bored_ of this conversation.

"Yeah, but we already did ours and we didn't do Ben's!" Andy points out. Ben figures that April already knew that.

"Yeah, well... whoops," April lifts her hands up in defeat and then takes one of Andy's in hers. With their matted, crazy wet and still a little sudsy hair, and a smile, they head off to the bedroom to go negate the whole point of the shower.

Ben goes and finds his noise-cancelling headphones, lies down on the couch, and mouths the words to a few episodes before he drifts off to a rather lethargic, short nap. At least, he thinks, he doesn't have to hear whatever is going on in the bedroom. The worst that can happen is Champion bounding over to him and licking his face or whining because he's not up on the couch with Ben. Really, as far as Ben is concerned, Champion is the most sane person in the Ludgate-Dwyer family.


	163. Ten Thousand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested anonymously as "The first time April tells Andy about her anxieties."
> 
> There's some drug use (just pot) in this chapter if that's not your thing!

As far as their relationship went, April considered it pretty great. What was there to hate? Andy was this warm, lovable giant of a man that she liked hanging around so much. With people, she generally considered them a waste of her time and so beneath giving a damn about that any effort expended to try was genuinely that; wasted. Him, though? It was like a whole new world, and she hated quoting Disney movies but, hey, in this instance it fit. Whatever, April definitely doesn’t watch those stupid things anyways. The simple fact that she could call Andy her boyfriend was strangely thrilling. Why? It was a dumb title, and really it didn’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things but, to April, the fact that he promised not to kiss anyone else made her feel special, enthused, and thrilled. All things she rarely ever felt in her life, so she just went with it.

Because, honestly, it’s hard to just feel openly for April. It’s nothing like an emotional stunting, but she never felt comfortable being very expressive with her feelings and it wasn’t until Andy that she really saw an outlet for many of her more serious thoughts. Sure, she took some things and had her fair share of failed therapy sessions, but sometimes another person that she actually felt something for - and, God, did she feel so much for Andy that sometimes her heart raced just thinking about the last time they kissed and her brain went into a panic wondering when they’ll see each other next - was so necessary.

Andy, of course, was all of that.

It wasn’t that she necessarily meant to hide things from him, but it’s hard to talk about a lot of this when you’ve just been dating for a week and some change. Well, they were friends for a long time before that, but she can’t just come out and reveal those parts of herself.

When she’s at the shoeshine stand with him, it’s different. Andy’s energy filled the spaces she didn’t think even existed - every laugh was a vibration along her spine that electrified her body, those stares he gave her with those eyes, and the touches when they kissed amplified every portion of her body overwhelmed with pleasure and comfort to maddening heights - and when he was calm he listened to the things she said. The urgency and immediacy of some of her words rang loud and clear for him, which April can never repay or forget. Sometimes, though, it wasn’t enough.

It all started earlier that morning, and it was nothing, really. When she passed through the parking lot there was a routine-enough ID check. Some of the cards were in need of replacement and throughout the whole check April was whispering, hoping, to herself that she wouldn’t need a replacement. Just her luck, she spent half an hour before work being asked simple questions that all felt strangely heavy and thick, and worrying about the countless possibilities that could happen. What if her ID wasn’t really in need of a renewal and they were just screwing with her? After everything she’d done to some of these guys at the security desk, and that one prank with the spray paint came to mind, she might deserve it. Or, what if by some chance something was wrong and she got arrested now for drinking on City Hall property under the legal age? How would she explain to a bunch of cops what she’s got on her - what she always takes to work, so stupidly, just to get by for the day - and that wasn’t even mentioning the repercussions for college. Not that she really cared that much… okay, she cared more about that than she’d let anyone in on. But, still, her opportunities, or at least the ones she bothered cultivating, would all be washed away.

Instead, it was just a nerve-wracking morning all the way to the shoeshine stand. Like she hoped, Andy was there and his smile did help a little bit. A peck on the lips was great as well, but she still couldn’t get the little confrontation out of her mind. He noticed it, too. She wondered if she’s always been this obvious or if Andy’s just gotten better at reading her. Hopefully the latter.

“Hey, um, you cool? You seem… out of it,” he nodded, eyes wide. Andy jumped up onto the chair next to where she had sat just a moment before. “Not, like, bad or anything but, uh, yeah. You seem…”

“Weird?” April offered, tapping her foot and turning her head to stare at him. Her eyes were huge, and she knew it, like she needed to be wary for any possibility.

“Yes. Wait, no! Um, bad-weird… not good-weird, y’know?” Andy scratched his chin.

“I think I just need to go outside real quick,” she nudged him with her elbow and stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll come with you!” Andy joined her, cheery in his voice and eager in his steps when they started walking. “I wanna hang out with you all the time now. Not, y’know, just because we’re dating. That’s really awesome, though-”

“It’s pretty great,” she agreed. “Just don’t be weird about it.”

“Wait, is this bad-weird again?”

“Just c’mon,” she chuckled, feeling less skittery and like her body’s fighting to go twelve different directions at once.

They walked down a low-traffic hallway towards a side door that April always used. It was only a brief little jaunt from the Parks department proper, and with Andy’s weirdly sweaty hand in hers it wasn’t so bad really. Normally she felt a little pang of funny guilt pass through her before whatever that drove her out there returned and she really just wanted something to relax her. Coffee was the exact opposite of what she wanted, her feet barely making contact with the ground with light taps, and she could barely unzip the little pocket in her purse fast enough. Inside was a miniature air freshener and a small can of air freshener, along with the little box of already rolled little white cones. Andy held the door open for them, glancing inside and at her bag. She got into the habit of making filters just because it was an unusually comforting experience knowing that these could help her through the day if things got especially bad. Pulling the box and her lighter out, Andy just gave her a surprised look.

“What?” she asked, taking one out and quickly putting it into her mouth. She savored the dry nothingness for a moment before flicking the lighter on with her thumb and lighting.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Andy said a little coyly. “Kinda surprised.”

“You wanna?” she offered, holding out the box.

“I haven’t done any in a while,” he shrugged.

“Really? I figured you and Burly got high all the time,” she took one long drag, not letting the smoke escape and enjoying the dry, hot pressure in her throat. “Y’know, you’re in a band and everything.”

“I mean, I used to in college all the time. Um, how often d’you do it?” he asked with what sounded like real worry in his voice.

“Look,” she started, and before long the words just felt natural coming out, “it’s just something… all right, if I say I need it that’s terrible but, y’know, it relaxes me. I mean, some people freak out but I just feel comfortable.”

“Oh, yeah?” he just looked down and scanned the little brown and red box before waving it off.

The effects weren’t instantaneous, but April knew when those jitters went away and her mind brushed aside some of the tinier worries. This is the reason she did it. Sure, sometimes it was just because she was bored out of her mind and people were way funnier, and more ridiculous, when she was high, but April did have a limited budget and she no longer had a gay boyfriend to steal pot from anymore. Now it was for serious circumstances, like ones where she thought the City Hall security was going to come down on her at any moment. Then again, the last thing she needs to worry about is security.

She never really got scared or especially crazy. April just sort of mellowed out and laughed more, and something about being able to giggle without thinking about it and enjoying herself was always nice. Now, with Andy, she didn’t really need it for that but it couldn’t hurt.

“Can we talk about this later?” she requested earnestly, looking up at him and taking one more pull before tossing the remnants in the same dumpster as always. “Please, Andy. I really don’t wanna say it out-”

“Sure, totally,” Andy nodded as she let out a heavy sigh.

“Yeah?” April looked over, surprised.

“Of course. Um, we don’t even have to talk about it if you don’t want,” he scratched the back of his head, looking inside the building. “You wanna go back in?”

“One sec,” she warned, taking out the little can and quickly spraying a little around her. “Okay.”

“You good?” he chuckled.

“Yeah, oh and… thanks,” she leaned up and kissed him on the cheek, feeling a heat she couldn’t distinguish from the effects of her body slowly tingling over and just calming and the little show of affection.

“For what?” he smiled but didn’t take his eyes off of her. Those eyes, and she struggled to maintain composure with little more than a lip bite and unfocused staring at him.

She shook away the blur and stopped herself from biting straight through her own flesh. “Just giving a shit,” she slung her bag over her shoulder and took his hand again. “C’mon, you-”

“Wanna make out at the shoeshine stand?” he asked before she could and April felt something hot spread over her face. It was probably a blush, and she should care but it’s hard to when the only thing she’s thinking about was his hand in hers and making out.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“So, you said you’d… uh, y’know, talk,” Andy looked down at her little spread between the two of them.  

In the little spare room at Burly’s place, while he was away, they were going to set up some rules for this to work. It was just a little bit that she was grinding as he spoke, but Andy didn’t sound exactly out of place or weirded out. Maybe surprised, especially considering the conversation earlier that day, but April always took him for being way into this stuff.

“All right, I’m gonna roll us two joints,” she explained, taking the grinds and spreading them with a practiced rub of her fingers along the little paper. “You’re gonna smoke with me, Andy. I mean, if you’re okay with that.”

“Totally!”

“Andy,” she whined, looking up and rolling her eyes.

“I mean it. If it’ll help you talk, let’s do it,” his lips were still pursed though. “I was just… I mean, I’ve got a little bit of money and I don’t wanna go broke again-”

“Relax, dude. Just… take this,” she offered him up the one she just rolled. “Give me a few minutes and we can talk.”

Andy touched it gingerly, holding it up to his mouth for a second before taking her lighter. A second later he was choking softly, a little rusty, and she just laughed at him. Like usual, all it did was make Andy smile and return her laugh with gusto and, before long, he was taking small puffs while she finished with hers. Being watched doing this wasn’t that big of a deal since she’d gotten decent at it by herself, and she didn’t have anything to hide from him. But, really, she just wanted to be a little more loose when she tried to talk about it.

“So, what’s the deal? I mean… I get it, you’re the cool indie kid,” Andy made a goofy dancing zig-zag with his legs crossed, looking as ridiculous as ever. “You probably smoke all the time!” he gestures but April just shrugs her shoulders in response. “Oh, really? So is this… uh, is this about how you looked, um, y’know bad-weird today?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, licking this next one closed and not bothering with a cardboard filter at the moment. “It’s about that, yeah.”

“We don’t have to-”

“Sometimes… uh, you ever go in a big room or a party and feel like there’s a thousand people right next to you? Like, instead of ten it’s hundreds all squished up next to you?” April beckoned for the lighter and he tossed it over, sliding himself over to the central bed and leaning his back onto it. His face takes on something like pensive, but as thoughtful as she’s ever seen Andy for sure. “One question is fifty too many and, like, they all suck-” she looks at her little, mangled spliff and sighs. “I dunno, people are annoying but sometimes I just say shit, y’know?”

“Huh,” Andy said with a curious expression she had never seen before, and he took a tiny puff of his own cigarette before he set the remains down in the little ashtray.

“Like, if I’m creepy or weird they’ll just leave me alone, y’know? They’ll know I’m the freak and let me alone,” she shrugged again, noticed it’s becoming a nervous tick and tried to stop herself from doing it again but just before she spoke once more her shoulders lifted and dropped just the same. “Don’t get me wrong, dead bodies are cool.”

“Totally the coolest.”

“But, it’s definitely way easier to scare people off that way,” she looked at him, expecting him to understand but of course he won’t. “You don’t get that, though. You’re in love with, like, everyone.”

“I mean, maybe I don’t get it but I do get you,” he pointed at her knowingly, his eyes drooping a little. “If it helps, it helps! That’s awesome, though.”

“What’s awesome?”

“That you’re telling me all this stuff about you,” Andy smiled and scooted closer to her. “You are so cool.”

“Shut up,” April deflected, an unmistakable smirk across her face.

“So when you go to parties and people are around you and stuff you just-?”

“Get super baked,” April nodded.

“Awesome.”

“That was all lame shit anyways. Derek and Ben were way more into that scene than I was,” April shrugged. “I don’t wanna talk about those losers.”

“Aw-”

Before he could get another word out, April leaned forward and left a sloppy, wet crash of lips take care of what she wanted to say. Breaking off, she gave him another smile and his grin grew three times.

“Y’know what I haven’t done in, like, forever?”

“What’sat?”

April pushed him further back towards the bed and brought them both up, standing, to get her point across. When it didn’t land, she guided them onto the bed into a tumbling, giggling, raucous mess. Whether they even got to the sex (and she hasn’t gotten laid in forever and especially not while stoned) wasn’t important, but April felt like those ten thousand hands of anxious worry fell off of her arms when she could tell him about them. It felt secret, but not between them, and safe. It just felt right.

 

 


	164. Choice Texts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another "A/A from a different perspective" chapter. This time: Ann Perkins!
> 
> This was requested a little while ago and I'm trying to fill out them without realizing that I'm still totally in over my head on this fic and have no idea how it's still a thing, and so so so so SO eternally grateful to everyone that reads, comments/reviews, and whatever else! Y'all are the bomb and I don't say it enough.
> 
> Thank you for giving me the will to continue and keep the relationship between these two chucklefucks alive! Without the feedback I receive, I wouldn't have ever gotten past... say, the tenth chapter of this fic. Look where we are now. That's all because of you.

The first one, she could get over. It was probably some weird, childish way to stick it in her face. Whatever  _it_ was, Ann doesn't really want to know. If she ever gets a sext from April featuring Andy, or April at all or Andy at all - God, the idea of a sext from either of them in any possible combination makes her want to groan - Ann might have to change phones and never give  _this_ number to her. Thankfully that never happens.

She does get an awful lot of them making out though.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ur terrible_

The morning is greeted by this. Every single one of them, for months. It all started since Ann signed on as Leslie's campaign manager. Some misspelled insult would flood her before she could even smack her alarm off, or a picture of a growling face and once a video of April just growling at her phone, and Ann's had enough.

She confronts April. The exchange lasts no more than ten seconds.

"Hey, April. I wanted to talk to you about-"

April makes an exaggerated, fake snoring sound and then shakes her head as if waking up. "Oh, sorry Ann. That was just extremely boring." She looks at the double doors leading out of the parks offices and her face does this amazing change.

Ann's not an idiot, and she notices just how into each other these two kids are. Where sour and grimace fell across her lips and face just moments before, something bright picked up and a grin found its way to April. Turning to look at the source, of course it's Andy. He's smiling just as wide, and he apparently motioned or beckoned for April because she leaves and darts past Ann without a second thought. No insult, no anything.

Now that was refreshing, but the text five minutes later from April stating that they were making out, and probably going to do it, wasn't at all necessary.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ann doesn't hate Andy. Far from it. He's lovable, sweet, and a little more than doofy, but he's just not the type of person Ann wants. He's far too low maintenance in the sense that she wants him to be at least marginally hygienic and April simply doesn't care. 

He seems so happy, and maybe just as if not more than when he was with her. Sure, maybe Ann had confusing feelings a long time ago about him when he started to show obvious affection for the angry little assistant, but now she can't dream of a more perfect couple. One dour, bleak, and a little lost if Ann had to hazard a guess, and the other cheery, optimistic, and so full of oddly positive qualities for someone so dirty and happily partially homeless. It just made sense. They fit together like this weird, magnetic force that just snapped together. They clicked, something that Ann and Andy simply never did. April and Andy got each other, from their jokes and their similar level of seriousness and maturity, and Ann just couldn't be that person. 

For a second, she's happy that they're together. Maybe Ann isn't personally fulfilled or pleased, but April is so obviously in love with him and Andy with her - and they fulfilled each other in ways that Ann didn't have - that she can't help but smile to herself. Watching a Lifetime Network movie by herself isn't very engaging, she guesses.

Then Leslie calls, and things get hung up. Ann relays her feelings, and it becomes a thing. And, just when Ann is feeling like those two idiot kids might be able to make something of their lives together whatever it might be, she gets a text of April and Andy's faces smashed together in a lazy, sloppy makeout session caught in one frame.

Ann just sighs and leaves the text unanswered like all the rest.


	165. Monsters and Pup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This popped into my head almost randomly, so I cannot claim the quality will be great!

"Babe, can you go talk to her?" April asks him, already totally busy with two of them - Victoria rapt attention drawn to the TV, thankfully, and Sam lying down on the floor staring at a pile of crayons and colored pencils - and the two oldest doing their own thing around the house, likely stuffed into their rooms. "She won't come out."

"Yeah, sure. What's it this time?" Andy asks, smirking.

"Monster," April replies, a sorrowed look on beneath her eyes. "She won't listen to me."

"Ah, she's probably just super scared babe!" he reassures her with a little grin and leans down to kiss her quickly. "You're the best mom."

"Mhm," she mutters and slinks over to Victoria. Pulling the little girl into her chest, she whispers something and they giggle before turning back to look up at the TV.

Andy takes that as his signal to go. On the snowy Saturday morning, they were planning to go find the biggest hill in the entire county, get some sleds, and spend the entire day getting their noses red, smiling, and enjoying the brief winter since it so rarely snowed here. It was something Andy missed dearly, but every chance he had he was taking his kids out to make snow angels and sled and watch it clump, have snowball fights, and the whole deal. The problem was, Lucy refused to go.

She kept saying something about a monster, and slid underneath her parents' bed. Refusing to move for April, she called him for him after his shower.

"I swear, she's just the  _best_ hider in the world!" Andy says loudly as he walks into their room. "We're just gonna go sledding but I can't find- oh!" He crouches down and pulls up the blankets hiding the little girl underneath the bed. Beady, green eyes stare back at him and little hands clutching a stuffed puppy retract further. "There ya are. Hey, c'mon don't you wanna go sledding?"

Lucy shakes her head slowly.

"Why not?" he asks, peering underneath. Andy looks over his shoulder and then back at her underneath the bed. "If I come under there with you, will you tell me?"

His daughter nods shortly and Andy turns himself around. Barely able to fit underneath the bed, and only then because it was so high up off the ground, he squeezes in tight and makes room next to her. "C'mon, scoot over," he says with a laugh, poking her side until she smiles and giggles with him. Fit underneath, snug, Andy turns his head onto his cheek to look at her. "So, what's up Cici?"

"There's a monster under my bed," she whispers like the supposed monster will hear her.

"A scary one?" he asks, and she nods. "Scarier than your mom after Auntie Ann visits?" Lucy nods vigorously, and Andy's eyes go wide in a joking frightfulness. "Wow, that  _is_ scary!"

"I don't wanna go out."

"Why?"

"The monster will find me and eat me and you and mom and-"

"Whoa," he whispers, moving closer. "D'you think I'm gonna let some dumb monster eat my baby?"

He adds that bit with a chuckle, tapping her belly again and shifting his other arm out from under him to launch a minor, but loud, attack of tickles at her.

"Daddy!" she shouts, whining in that joyful squeal he loved to hear.

After calming down, and stopping, Andy sighs. "We can go check under your bed if you want," he offers.

"No don't!" she grabs his arm, wide in her little hands.

"Cici, nothing's gonna hurt your dad."

"It's  _really_ scary," she says and draws her hands up to her mouth, fingers sticking out like fangs. "It's got big teeth!"

"Wow."

"And huge claws and... and, and it's scaly all over," she trails off, her wild eyes going to some far off imagination that Andy adores more than anything else in the world. Well, that's not true. He doesn't have a favorite, but he loves  _all_ of his kids more than anything else in the world. "It'll eat you!"

"I think I can handle it," Andy says with a grin and Lucy gives him an unsure grimace. He's seen  _that_ before in those old pictures he managed to get from April's mom. "I think I might need a helper, though. I know just the person for it." He reaches out and touches the stuffed puppy. "I think Johnny Karate could use Pup's help on this one."

Lucy looks down at the dog and her face brightens a little bit. "I wanna make sure Pup is okay," she says.

"Johnny Karate's never had  _two_ sidekicks before," Andy says in awe. Squeezing himself back out of the bed after a huff and an exertion upward to give himself a little more room, he huffs out, "I might just need it, too."

Lucy crawls out slowly and hands her stuffed animal to him. Pretending to sweat, and be tired, when he touches the dog he makes a show of standing up and taking deep, deep breaths. She just giggles and he reaches down to lift her up, cradling the three year-old against him. Walking through the living room, April glances at him with Victoria still in her lap and he nods. In the bedroom - the lair of the monster - he lets her down and walks over to the bunk bed, cautious.

"Is this where the monster was?" he asks, serious. Lucy nods. Getting to the floor, he looks underneath and back at her. "I think I need Pup for this one."

Taking the dog, he peers once more underneath the bed and then laughs. Standing up, he walks over to Lucy and crouches in front of her. Holding up Pup, he nods and then gives his daughter a big smile.

"I think Pup scared it off," he claims.

"Nuh uh-"

"Uh huh," he fires back childishly. "I think I saw it but once they saw Pup-" he makes a running motion with his fingers and points out the window. "It ran away with its tail between its legs."

"I never said it had a tail," Lucy says a little indignantly.

"Oh it did! A big one, too," Andy nods when her eyes go wide again. "Uh huh, it was really scary. But the thing saw Pup and just ran away."

"So is it outside now?" she asks, scared.

"Yeah, but monsters don't like it when it's light out," Andy tells her, nodding all the while. "It's true! Why do you think they always hide under your bed or in the closet. They're super afraid of lights!"

"So-"

"So it's running away from Pup  _and_ the sun," he tells her. Handing the stuffed dog back to her, he sits up on his knees and grins. "I think we could use you two when we go sledding. Don't you think?"

"Pup can protect us!"

"Exactly!" Andy shouts and grabs her by her waist and lifts her up with him. Grunting from the strain he hates to admit, he stands up and sighs. "So, you wanna go outside with everyone now? Help keep your brother and sisters safe?"

Lucy nods rapidly, a smile pushing her cherub dimples into focus again. He laughs and kisses her cheek loudly, eliciting another set of giggles from her. He walks out to the living room to join the rest of their family, April already getting Victoria into her little snow pants with the other pair for Lucy on the couch behind her that she slips into without much help. Lucy spends the whole ride talking about Pup and how awesome he is. 


	166. Johnny Karate and the Birds and the Bees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of the positing of this chapter it's been, officially, a whole _year_ since I started this fic, and even less than that since I started doing my one-a-day fic challenge, and then the four-day schedule happened, and then some personal problems and drama... and we're back to a poorly kept four-day. 
> 
> Honestly, it's been a crazy ride so far. When I first started this fic I never thought it would grow like this. It was just an outlet for the cuteness I saw in this ship, and when I asked for prompts I thought I'd get nothing, y'know? It was a different time back then, all fresh and bright eyes and I was never sure where this was going. To what end, was basically what I asked myself. It was always to make more and more April/Andy fics because the world seriously lacked them and, hell, if no one else was gonna do it then I may as well. I remember writing for nobody back then, a handful of readers here and there that never quite stuck or the very rare exception that's been around since the beginning... either way, I remember what it was like "writing for nobody," and how depressing that thought was. Now I always know that people are going to read this, either right now when I post it or ten months down the line when they discover this fic for the first time and are in awe that there's so much fic here. It, honestly, makes me so happy.
> 
> This is way too long, sorry.
> 
> Anyways, I guess I really wouldn't be here without the people that read and request and, honestly, I have no idea what's ahead of us for this fic but I do know that I'm so happy that I got to share these adorable dumbs with the world over and over again.

"Babe, I said I'd handle it-"

"Look, he found a super cool dirty website and-"

"Don't call it super cool, he's six!" April yelled back at him. 

"I never thought you'd be a prune," Andy said with a wry smile. She can only shake her head in exasperation at him.

"It's different when he's that little," she said, looking over her shoulder and down the hallway towards Jack's room. "I dunno. I don't want my baby-" and to that, Andy  _aww_ 'd so loudly and with such a smile on his face that April grew hot in the face. "I don't want him to grow up to be a weird sex pervert."

"Like mother, like son," Andy grinned.

"Andy!" she berated him, slapping his shoulder.

"Okay, okay! I'm sorry... I'll go talk to him," he said, rubbing the side of his arm. Kids really built some muscles for April, which as far as Andy's concerned is super hot. "Our son won't be a sex-weirdo, I promise. He can be a football weirdo-"

"And serial killer factoid aficionado," April said with that low purr in her voice that brought a smirk to both of their faces. "Or a vampire football player."

"That sounds way better, anyways," Andy offered and then sighed. 

"How're you gonna do it?" April asked him, curious. 

"I have  _zero_ idea! I never got the  _talk_ ," Andy said, putting air-quotes around that last word.

"Me neither," April shrugged. "I guess I just went on the internet like Jack."

"See, I told you! Like mother, like son," Andy said, laughing more a cackle than anything, before something dawned in his eyes and April gave him a curious look in response. "Oh my God-"

"Andy?"

"I have the best idea," he said, kissing April's cheek before scrambling to his feet and running out towards the garage.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy swung the door open dramatically, guitar in hand. He was joined by the opening bars of Johnny Karate's smash hit, "Mommies and Daddies."

Jack stared up at him, eyes wide, and Andy grinned.

 

 

* * *

 

 

April went about the house, exhausted, looking into the twins' nursery occasionally out of some kind-of time-grown nervousness despite years of practice and knowledge. Every once and a while, as she passed the bedroom where Andy and Jack were, a laugh or a guitar strumming and singing would come out.

Once, she swore she heard Andy say that, "Babies are made when two people do something awesome together." She smiled at that, because it's not technically  _wrong_.

Sam was still asleep in her shared room with her sister, a goofy almost-toddler look on her face what with the whole open mouth, stretched out look and April can't help but grin. Robbie woke up from a nap, groggy and hungry, and April carried her around with her into the little home office she has, sitting at her computer to get a few things done while her daughter giggled and tried to touch the monitor, type with her mom, or just slam on the table. Apparently the cartoons on the other screen in the room weren't entertaining enough, so April called it a lost cause and left the office to go see how the whole "Talk" was going.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"So, um, d'you understand what you saw, little guy?" Andy asked seriously, his guitar sitting against the door. Crouching in front of his son, Andy's donned his karate gi of old and the persona of Johnny Karate was taken out of retirement just in time to teach a good lesson to Jack. "D'you have any more questions?"

Jack looked up at him. There were already  _a lot_ , and the curiosity was so cool to Andy. This was something he knew a lot about, so he could definitely answer all of them (probably too well, even) and so it felt, for the first time, like Andy was being a good dad. Not that he thought he was bad, and hey his kids were always laughing and smiling whenever he could make them, but this felt  _realer_ than anything else. This was real life and he was teaching his son something, like a good father does. Andy loved the ring of that:  _Andy Dwyer, Awesome Dad_.

Yeah, it sounded awesome.

"Dad?"

"Yeah, bud?" Andy stood up only to sit next to Jack, eager to fill out that role even more. Every day he realized that this was the role he was born to play. 

"Do you and mom do stuff like that?" Jack asked with all the naive curiosity he could possibly have.

Andy gulped in response and what came out next was more a nervous chuckle than anything else. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Andy joined her and Robbie in the living room, April was playing with Sam's hands in hers - more making dumb sounds and giggling when their little girl did - while Robbie watched the TV with that sleepy child glaze to her eyes. Her nap was cut too short, Andy guessed.

"So, how'd it go?" she asked.

Andy smiled and sat down on the couch, lifting Robbie up with concerted effort (she was already so tall, it felt like there was another April walking around) to set her in his lap. "Super well," he answered with confidence.

"Really?"

"Well, he  _might_ have asked me if we do stuff like what he saw..."

"Andy," April warned him.

"What, I couldn't lie to my son!" he answered back defensively, his arms around Robbie like she could shield him from April.

Just as he said that, Jack walked into the kitchen and peered into the living room. His eyes grew wide at the sight of them and he dashed back into his room. When Andy finally turned his head to look back at April, she was shaking her head.

"If he grows up to be weird-"

"I know, it's definitely all my fault," Andy said with a growing smile. "It's definitely not his mom's fault. She's only into mummies and werewolves and blood and-"

"I think our kids are gonna be perfectly weird," April said, "with parents like us."

Andy grinned and leaned over, gave her a kiss on the lips, and sat back in the couch feeling like he was back in the running for Most Awesome Dad again. That immediately made him think of a coffee mug with that on it, and he had to tell April that he just got something caught in his eye because, seriously, that sounded so awesome. Which, really, was his outlook on parenthood as a whole. So maybe his son got The Talk a little early, but Andy knew the idea of his  _mom and dad_ in relation to those websites would scare him right off for at least a few years. 

 _A-plus, Dwyer_ , he thought to himself just as Robbie turned in his lap to tug on his scraggly beard.


	167. Quick Question

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been really slow in the updates lately, on any of my fics, but real life has been hectic and it's been nice, frankly, taking a break for a little bit from the insane schedule I've had for so long. I have a few requests on tumblr that will end up fitting in here nicely, though :)
> 
> This was requested anonymously as "Sonia goes to April about emotional sex topics she doesn't want to talk to her mom about."

First it was a text. April loved the days when Leslie and Ben visited because it meant that the triplets would take over babysitting. At least one night out to the movies - after promising Leslie they’d meet them at the restaurant and ditching to go make out in the back row of whatever silly slasher flick with too many shower scenes was out that month - and it was this awesome resort night every time. Sometimes it ended at a motel room, getting hurried, anxious calls from Leslie. Once it was having to hurry back to the kids because one of the twins was coughing and, simultaneously, April and Andy’s well-bred parental nerves kicked into high gear.

So, really, April wasn’t surprised by the text from Sonia. She  _was_ a little confused why it was three hours early, and why she was driving over to talk. 

What the hell could be so important to interrupt April’s very important nap?

“Hi,” Sonia greeted her at the door, opening it herself with a spare key April had given her years ago, with her usual quickness. “Hi. Can I come in? Yeah, I’m coming in.”

April stepped aside, not saying a word. Sonia moved over to the living room and flopped down on the couch, sighing all the way. Deflated, she looked up at April with a thoughtful bite at the inside of her cheek. 

Cautiously, April sat next to her on the couch and looked over. 

“So, um, you wanna talk about why you’re breaking into my house?” April asked with a smirk.

Sonia was always her favorite - not that she’d ever tell Leslie that - and maybe that’s because she looked up to her, in a way. It was some weird completing the circle thing, April guessed, because it made all sorts of, and at the same time absolutely no sense that Leslie’s daughter looked up to her aunt.

“Is Uncle Andy here?”

“Sleeping,” April answered. “Like me. Before you broke into my house.”

“I know-”

“You’re lucky I don’t have traps at my door,” April explained further, grinning. “Like a giant spike that would fling out when you opened the door.”

“Maybe you should stop giving your keys out to intruders,” Sonia countered.

“Touché.”

“Can I talk to you? About something?” Sonia shook her head. “It’s stupid, but not. It’s important. Vitally important. Mission critical, in fact.”

“Okay, weirdo,” April said. “What’s up?”

Sonia gave her a brief smile. “Thanks. Okay, so. You and Uncle Andy have kids right?”

“Wow, I didn’t know how I was gonna to tell you-”

“So that means you have sex?” Sonia asked.

April stopped mid-sentence and titled her head in confusion, scrunching up her nose all the while. Eventually she answered, with a chuckle, “Yeah. Uncle Andy and I do– have sex.” Shaking her head again, April tried to get the idea of the sixteen year old baby in front of her having sex out of her head. Not that April lost her virginity only a bit later than that or anything. “Wait, why are you asking me this stuff?”

“So, there’s someone in Pawnee-”

“Oh boy.”

“What?”

“I told you not to get with anyone in Pawnee!” April said like she was explaining to Andy how to use the printer. “It’s weird. People there suck.”

“You’re from Pawnee.”

“My point stands,” April said and they share a smile. “Why didn’t you just talk to your mom about this stuff?” She finished with a grimace, the idea of Leslie having sex, and with  _Ben_ no less, bringing out a kind of weird  _ew, that’s my mom_ feeling in her stomach.

“I’m fine getting lectures on feminism and binders about almost anything else,” Sonia spoke almost in exasperation on that last topic, “but, seriously, you’re my cool aunt.”

“That is true,” April agreed. “So…?”

“So, um, what’s it like?”

April sat, unsure how to answer that, for a solid minute before shaking her head again. “Seriously? You have the internet, you’ve probably read-”

“No, not like that,” Sonia clarified.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, um. Like, how does it  _feel_? Like, when you do it? No, that’s not right. When you do it, do you feel something? Ugh, no that’s dumb-”

“Calm down, dude,” April laughed and pushed her shoulder playfully. “Okay, so you wanna know if it feels like something? For me? Yeah, it’s totally a new… thing. Like a whole new connection or something gross like that.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think everyone gets that, though,” April shrugged. “I dunno, I’m not a sex-doctor.”

“You did dress as a-”

“That was Andy’s idea, and I still think it was stupid,” April answered but she felt a floaty happiness in her chest at the memory of the night afterward. “Whatever. It’s something like that. You just sorta… figure out the time and everything naturally, y’know?”

“Have you ever met my mom and dad? There’s no ‘just wing it,’ in our family,” Sonia nearly pleaded with her saying that. “C’mon, seriously-”

“Look, if it’s the right person and you want to, it’ll happen,” April said, dropping any pretense of a joke. She sighed and looked down, then back to Sonia. “It’ll happen, trust me. Don’t think about what-if’s or anything like that. Don’t let some dumb voice in your head get ahead of you, okay? You’re awesome and anybody would be lucky to be with you, and they’re probably super cool.”

Sonia gave her a shy smile and then cocked her head. “Wait, I never said I was nervous about it.”

“Oh, yeah,” April said slowly, trying to figure out how to backpedal away from this one. “Well, I was just being sure.”

Sonia gave her a sideways look. 

“What?”

“You just… do it?” Sonia asked, changing the topic.

“I mean, make sure you wanna do it, obviously. Be careful, too,” April pointed at her and then dropped her hand, remembering her mother doing the  _exact same thing_ to her years ago. “Just, be safe and if it matters to you make sure they’re worth it.”

“And if it doesn’t matter to me if they’re my first?”

“Man, I dunno,” April shrugged. “It’ll be okay, y’know? It’s not scary or anything. You shouldn’t be scared if you like this person.”

“I do!”

“Yeah, so it’ll be fun,” April reassured her, still doing her damnedest to fight back the faintest connection between  _Sonia_ and  _sex_. “It feels like… connecting with that person, if you really like them. You just wanna be closer and closer to them, and it’s awesome and new but, trust me, it’s so worth it.”

Sonia met her eyes, and smiled back at April. They held that for a second before Sonia cleared her throat.

“So, does it, um…. feel good?”

“Okay, conversation over,” April smacked the cushions of the couch and stood up, sighing. “You can go ask the internet that, because I don’t want to throw up today. For once.”

“Gross.”

“I know, right?” April asked, smiling. “Now, um, I really wanna take a nap. So, you could go back to whichever summer home you and your parents have fifty of-”

“It’s a hotel-”

“Whatever. I need to sleep,” April started pushing her out of the house, anxious to get away from the conversation at hand. “Go text your boyfriend or whatever and tell them they’re getting laid. Be smooth.”

“Smooth,” Sonia repeated, and took a deep breath. Letting it all out in one gush, she turned to give April another look. “Got it. Smooth. Nailed it. I am totally smooth. I can be so smooth that-”

April interrupted by shutting the door between them and locking it, hoping that the key in the teenager’s pocket would go unremembered. Thankfully, April did get her nap. Worse, she got texts from Sonia later that night confirming just how  _smooth_ she could be. 

Sometimes she wished that this whole adulthood thing would just leave her alone.


	168. Scared

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously on tumblr as "angsty April," so I had some leeway. I have no idea what this is.
> 
> What you get is some HS-era April angst. No A/A, but hey that line's been toed before in this fic.

_Being picked on sucks._

Stacy Knoblauch, resident coolest clique-leader of Pawnee, was basically April’s arch-nemesis. Every day, it’d be something silly or barely even worth noticing. Tripping her up when she walked past Stacy or her gang of indiscernible trolls to get to her seat in class was common, but April just figured out a path to take every day to avoid that. 

Getting her lunch stolen out of her locker, too. In fact, in eighth grade her locker went from a place where she could stash notebooks that no one on the planet should read or risk death by fire to a sparse hole in the wall that was raided every day by that same gang looking for a new way to mess with her.

It was easy to ignore. They were morons.

People just did their thing, and theirs happened to be picking on her. It wasn’t that big of a deal, and it’s not like April stood back and took it all. Dead raccoons showed up in the Knoblauch yard, and signs in red lipstick or marker meant to look like blood declared that they had  _seven days to live_. 

Sometimes, though, being picked on sucks.

It sucks like learning her grandmother died in the middle of class, the only person in April’s family that really mattered to her because she was, quite literally, a witch. April never moped, or at least that’s what she wanted to believe, but that day it was too much. She’d never again go to her abuela’s and read chicken bones, or talk about rituals and sacrifices in joking tones, quiet so not to disturb her parents.

She couldn’t just take a bus across the state anymore, frighten her parents to the point of getting search parties, all because she wanted to go see her. April started the day having a grandmother, and having this weird, crazy old lady connecting her to that vaguely serious dark side that she cared about, and then, in the next moment, she was gone.

So, of course, the stashing of her purse in a trash can bothered her. Getting laughed at, told she was a freak, and having her clothes yanked on because they’re  _too black_ sucked. 

For once, April let her guard down and everything  _hurt_.

It hurt all the way home, all the way into her bed, and into the softness of the pillow against her face. She wasn’t inhuman; April  _felt_ things, and she felt them so extremely that she often just bottled them up until they went away. Or, at least, until she could handle them. Oftentimes, the bullying went away.

It’s the first time that April really felt the hatred pointed at her in school by those kids, and by the girls that claimed to just be  _making a joke_. 

It’s the first time that April considers how little she has there, and now with the only person that really mattered in her life just  _gone_ , what she has  _at all_.

And, for the first time, April’s scared.


	169. Chase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested by lunabelles on tumblr (who also writes fics that you can check out [here!](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lunabelle/pseuds/lunabelle)) as "angsty A/A." More wiggle room, so I went with Andy's thoughts post-S2/pre-S3. I've done April's before, so here's our big bubbly teddy bear... being sad.
> 
> Enjoy!

Optimism was basically Andy’s favorite pastime, and, really, even though he was  _sure_ he did something wrong at the hospital, though what it was he had no clue, he had to have a positive outlook. He never liked lying, and was always so bad at it, so why should he have lied? That’s what he kept telling himself, messaging April constantly, and calling her, and wondering why she just wouldn’t talk to him.

He was supposed to tell the truth, right? Maybe he wasn’t meant to blow it up in their faces, but that kiss was  _so_ incredible - and really, he thought he was going to laugh forever from how giddy that brief touch of lips made him - and he just felt the need to make sure they were cool.

Apparently, they weren’t.

“Hey... April,” Andy said, leaving the thousandth or so message that day. “Um, so it’s me! Andy. Yeah, Dwyer. Um, so... you’re super mad about something. Dunno what, but I thought we could, like, talk? Hang out? Whatever’s cool. Yeah. Um, I still like you. Bye.”

As far as he could tell, Andy nailed that one. But she wouldn’t call back. She didn’t answer his texts anymore, and even when he was apologizing for something he didn’t even realize was happening, she didn’t. 

After a while, Andy started to feel that optimism leave. Burgers that were normally awesome, greasy, and filed him right up were tasteless and he needed three or four more to feel better. His music took on a dreary tone, no longer the ballads he wrote for April constantly (either in his head or on the guitar) and became slower, darker and, for once, he hated the sound of his own songs. They all sucked. The lyrics were sappy, and never talked about  _anyone_ flying or anything! 

They all talked about ravens, or specifically raven-haired people. Girls. A girl. A single raven-haired girl.

By the time the Parks crew was back in action, Andy was starting to feel like April would never come back. He spent so much time thinking about being with her, and making everything right, that for once he faced the possibility that she wouldn’t even be around him anymore. 

It wasn’t that he  _deserved_ her to be there or anything gross, but at the very least he wanted to apologize to her and let April know that he would be totally cool just being friends as long as she wasn’t mad at him. Sure, it would tear him apart seeing her with other people, but he was a grown man. He’d been through his weird transitional phase with Ann where Mark was his rival that entire time, and now it just sounded boring because Ann  _always_ hated him when he was like that. The idea of April feeling like Ann, now, sent him into this weird spiral. It felt like  _sadness_.

She might be gone from his life forever and, as far as he knew, April was not the kind of girl that liked to be chased. Hell, he had to tell some guy to leave her alone just  _for_ that. What would make him any different? She obviously didn’t like him at all, so that wouldn’t work. He’d have to put up--

 _Wait_.

He looked out through the courtyard, and there she was. Maybe it was wrong, but Andy’s first thought wasn’t  _oh my God, she’s back_  but,  _oh my God she’s so pretty_.

Either way, he sprinted out towards her, hopeful that maybe he was different and that chasing her that far would be okay. Because, really, Andy’s one heartbreak away from wondering if he’s worth anything at all.


	170. One Happy Zombie Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been feeling extremely down about my writing recently, so I haven't written anything. Weird. Either way, I'm posting this because I need to write something before I lose it all.
> 
> Requested anonymously on [tumblr.](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com)

“Andy, don’t tell me-”

“What?”

April was pointing at the open jar of tomato sauce in his hand. They were grocery shopping, not grocery testing. He looked at her as if he was innocent of anything, hand full of red sauce and with a smear at the corner of his mouth. And, of course, the mess on the rest of his cheeks.

Worse yet, their barely-two year old son was absolutely  _covered_ in the stuff as well.

“Dude!”

“What! He said he wanted some,” Andy defended. “Okay, maybe he didn’t  _say_ it but he kept tapping the jar and I was hungry. We can pay for it later, right?”

“Yeah, but--”

“But Jack is now a zombie baby covered in blood,” Andy pointed out, lifting up the little boy with a laugh (and that telltale giggle of Jack’s) and looking at April with a wide grin. Jack turned as well, his face split in a smile and tomato sauce all over his cheeks and hands. “And I’m the zombie daddy.”

“Not fair,” she complained, dipping her hand into the open jar and slathering some on her own face. Screw the makeup. Chunky, mushroom-filled fake blood was more important anyways. “Zombie family or no zombies at all. That’s the rule.”

“Ma!” Jack exclaimed happily, reaching out for April with one chubby little hand.

Checking out was, honestly, hilarious. For everyone. The cashier was an older lady who couldn’t stop laughing either, and later April would have to thank Andy for their silly zombie family.


	171. Andy and Small Comforts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) as "Andy comforts April while she's in her first pregnancy." I've written about this before, but really... isn't this what's good and great in the world?

“Ugh,” April complained before whining and wincing, hard. 

Andy turned on instinct in the bed, looking drowsy and beat - most likely from the four in the morning craving that he couldn’t go out to the grocery store to get - and immediately shook himself awake as best he could.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“It’s just…  _fuck_ ,” she groaned and sighed. “Ugh, this was, like, half the point of getting pregnant.”

“What?”

“I’ve got cramps, dude,” she whined again and shifted uncomfortably.

“Oh, it’s a Brady Bunch contraction,” Andy said knowingly. April just stared at him, as best he could tell in the dark, with a venomous glare. “It’s a really weak contraction because you’re really late in the pregnancy and the baby… wants to get out!”

“Braxton Hicks,” April corrected, “and I know what it  _is_ but it  _sucks_.”

“Okay, okay... I got it, I remember,” he said proudly and stood up. “C’mon.”

“What?” she grimaced at Andy offering his hand to her, like she  _wanted_ to get up. 

“Walking helps, that’s what the doctor said. You know that, you’re just super pissed and sleepy,” Andy said softly and grinned. “C’mon babe. You trust me, right?”

Sighing, April took his hand and stood up slowly with his help. It took a few laps around the house before she felt less like a mountain was crumbling in her head and punching downward through her whole body. Andy kept talking, though, and she half-wondered if that was what really helped.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Am I supposed to feel like there’s a fire in my chest?” April asked, a sudden spike in pitch in her voice. 

She was busy lying on the couch, attempting to alleviate the awful sensation in the center of her back and lower, when her chest suddenly burned. It was probably dinner coming to bite her back again, but she wasn’t ready for this. Suddenly being an adult was lame again.

At her feet, trying to resist tickling them or massaging them, Andy was staring at her. 

“Um--”

“Andy!”

“What?”

“I have heartburn,” she groaned. “How do you deal with this? It’s stupid, and it burns.”

“Oh my God,” Andy said, an epiphany across his face. “I think that’s why it’s called heartburn, babe! You’re so smart--”

“Andy,” she threatened with a hiss.

“Okay, okay. Just, um, gimme a sec,” he offered her, shifting her feet back to the couch and bounding out to the kitchen. 

Meanwhile, April dealt with the unceasing  _gross_ feeling just below her throat. If she wasn’t so annoyed at it, she might throw up. Instead, she focused on the pain in her back and how the pillows against her felt amazing.

He returned with a glass of what looked like soda and she scoffed.

“Dude, I can’t drink pop,” she reminded him.

“It’s okay. I checked with the doctor lady, who is super awesome by the way,” he nodded. “C’mon, it’s ginger ale.”

“Is it Vernors?”

“Yeah, babe. Of course, you don’t drink any other kind,” he said. 

Groaning, she grabbed the glass and was alarmed at how  _warm_ it was but nevertheless took a deep drink from it. Andy heated it up. It tasted  _disgusting_ , and had already swallowed it before the true horrors of the heated ginger hit her taste buds. 

“Oh... ugh,” she whined, making an exceptionally sour face.

“I know right?” Andy nodded, resuming his place at the other end of the couch. “It’s really gross.”

 

 

* * *

 

April always asked for weird food as a joke before. Ordering at restaurants, or from Leslie at work years before, she did it just to get a rise out of that person, wondering how they could remotely serve a fresh human leg or snails and salsa. 

Now, she actually really wanted anchovies and onion and pineapple pizza.

Except when she got it, and it looked like a rotting pile of stink. Then she made Andy go get her some tuna salad, and for whatever reason she had a really annoying crying fit because she’s too needy right now and when he got home, she was just angry all over again.

Andy figured out that she had been crying, and then he felt worse and it made her feel worse. 

Really, she couldn’t wait to get the hellspawn out of her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“So, you need--”

“Clothes, and my monster makeup,” she explained to him.

“And your mix--”

“My birthmix, and my picture of us, and my tiny guitar, and my stuffed dog and--”

“Babe,” Andy interrupted her, holding her shoulders as she breathed heavily, panicking. “You’re getting super agitated. You gotta calm down. I’ll go get the dog, and the mix, and everything... it’s all in the bag Leslie made us make.”

“I know, but the baby is--”

“Okay, I know. I know!” Andy shouted, leaving a kiss on her forehead and darting out of the room to where their emergency bag was kept in the Pawnee cabin. “Babe, I got it!” he screamed from the other room. “Baby Ludgate-Dwyer is on the way!”

April cracked a tiny smile before her face contorted in pain once more. It  _better_ be on the way, and fast.


	172. List

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested anonymously as how Andy goes about filling his little list in 3x06 - "Indianapolis."
> 
> Enjoy!

Flowers might have been the hardest one, and Andy was only on the first part of his list. He liked making them, turns out. Not that he ever intended to  _do_ anything on them, and being able to for once - and not like his stupid bucket list that, at this point, was never getting finished - was awesome. 

Plus, it was for April. That just made things way easier.

_So, right, flowers._

He looked at roses, but figured she wouldn’t like them. Besides, he was broke and even these two dollar, grocery store roses were too much. On the way back to work, he realized he hadn’t seen any flowers that she might like. Then again, he wasn’t sure partying, drinking, gore-loving flowers were a thing. Settling into his station, he suddenly felt like a failure. 

 _I can’t even do one of these right_ , he thought, staring at a pile of papers that somebody (likely Kyle) left on the chair beside him.

He started playing with the paper, wondering why he was so bad at everything and suddenly felt that weird, scary feeling in the back of his head that April was way better than him. It sucked, but he couldn’t let it go. After a few minutes of that dumb thinking, he looked down at the crumpled mess of paper that he was balling up and realized it looked a little bit like a flower. 

By the time the end of the day came around, and after hiding everything from April when she skipped a conference, Andy had half a dozen kind-of paper flowers. In them, he wrote all sorts of stuff, some of it things he probably shouldn’t have written down –  _you are the prettiest girl on the planet_ ,  _you are way cooler than Ann_ ,  _you are so awesome and I think about you all the time_ – and some that he  _definitely_ shouldn’t have written down for April to see, but then she flipped open one of the petals and that shy little smile on her face was unmistakeable.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Spurned on by his success, Andy tried chocolate. And by tried, he went to the expensive place at the mall and, after a very sweaty, nervous fit, walked out of there with a box of them safely pilfered in his coat pocket. 

Trouble was, he tasted one just to see and realized they were awful. They tasted like stale bread and fruit, just with the lovely facade of chocolate.

By now though, he couldn’t make paper chocolate.  _That wasn’t a thing, right?  
_

In the end, he brought her one of those gross granola bars from the cafe at work. She normally got the nut-filled one, but he bought the chocolate just so he could feel like he was doing something right.

When he visited her on his lunch break, he handed her the bar. “I know, it’s the wrong one. Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

“It’s fine,” she said without any malice. She actually sounded like she did at the bar a few days before, and it was a really cool thing to feel like she wasn’t mad at him. “Whatever, these are lame anyways.”

Still, April unwrapped it and finished the thing by the time he left. Maybe not paper flowers with praise and crude thoughts written all over it, but it would have to do.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 _Rubies?_   _Check_ , he thought looking down in the bag of Tootsie Pops. Emeralds, too. Sadly, no diamonds.

Maybe one day he’d buy her a real one instead of dumb candy.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy eventually gave up on the idea of a treasure chest full of scarves, wondering what that could have been in the first place.

It took him a while, but then he put it together. A way to make it work, and it was just a play on words.  _Chest_ full of scarves.  _Chest_ and scarves.

Andy wasn’t smart, but he knew that chest didn’t have to mean a wooden box. And the chest he was thinking about was most definitely a treasure. 

Hopefully April was into this sort of thing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Where’d you get this?” April asked, taking a swig from the metal flask that Andy learned pretty quickly was full of vodka. 

“Oh, some guy left it here,” Andy said.

April proceeded to spit out a stream of vodka onto the City Hall tiles and give him an incredulous look.

“What?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Also, as it turns out, April isn’t really into massages. One day while they were being lazy at Burly’s and she was leaning her back against his shoulder (and she liked doing this weird thing where she dropped her head backward on him and looked up at him) Andy took advantage of the situation.

“Dude, I’m not--” she shrugged her shoulders at his big, clumsy hands working her shoulder blades. “I don’t need a massage, okay?” she told him.

“Oh,” Andy muttered, dropping his head and hands in defeat.

“Right now,” she told him with a smirk. Then she added, with a much more wicked smile, “I could probably use on later.”

That little bottle he was holding at his stand at work -- and then yelled at by a suddenly vocal April to put it away -- would come in handy just in time.


	173. Villa - A Little Artist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested anonymously as more in the tattoo artist universe - the original fic being [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3619377) \- and specifically a thing that I promised way back then but never wrote because I'm a terrible person. More kid-fic because, well, that's what is currently being requested and I simply can't keep up with old ones at the moment :(
> 
> I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!

The moment her phone rang, April was already frustrated. Andy had promised that it was just going to be a really boring Thursday and that nobody ever came in on that day, and she prepared for lying down all day, sleeping, maybe eating, and staying in bed with him the entire day while Jack was at school. Instead, what she got was him discussing a weekend job with somebody for hours on end, and with yet another for what felt like forever. She couldn't blame him, though. Everybody loved him, and wanted more of him, and sure it made her feel weirdly needy to simply want him all to herself, but he was doing the right thing for them; for his family. After all, she wasn't exactly making any money at the moment from her own art.

But this phone call really didn't need to happen. 

"Ms. Ludgate?" a surly voice on the other end crackled at her. 

"Yeah," she sighed more than said. "What's it this time?"

"Would you be available for a conference with me? Today, that is. If you can get around to it, of course," the man's voice was laced with poison, but in a way that meant he thought was clever rather than blunt and dumb. "I know you've got better things to do than--"

"I can make it," April said and then instantly hung up. Walking over to Andy in the corner where he was hanging up prints, she wrapped her arms around his waist and pushed her cheek against his soft lower back that felt as safe and comfortable as usual.

"Who was that?" Andy asked, leaning up to reach for one of her prints. 

"Mr. Jamm," she groaned. "I need to go for a conference with him or something."

"Oh, you want me to go too?" he turned around and looked down at her, inquisitive. "I totally can, trust me. I'll drop all of this. It doesn't matter about--"

"I know," she smiled and tapped his arm playfully. "Dude, you've gone to the last, like, three and they think I'm lazy. Or maybe I don't exist."

"Yeah, well you said you didn't want to go and be annoyed," he said with a shrug. "You don't have to go."

"Obviously," she rolled her eyes. "He is  _my_ son, y'know. I wanna be around when he gets in trouble and makes authority figures mad."

When she added a mischievous grin, Andy's eyes lit up and he shared her smile. All she could give at the moment was a brief kiss on the lips before sighing again, dramatically and for show more than the real feeling, and walk out to drive her dingy car to some stupid public school.

The last thing she needed was some teacher or little kid getting weird and touching her arms. Kids were half-forgiven on the spot. April knew she looked cool -- she preferred badass but they're six -- but if some creepy elementary school teacher or insane janitor started getting handsy she might have to evacuate the building and set fire to it with shaky hands. These thoughts preoccupied the otherwise boring drive, all while April tried to remember what the best fluid would be for ignition of a brick building and coming up short, and before long she was pulling into the small parking lot of the school. 

Inside the gaudy office of the principal, Jamm, was the titular pig himself. When April entered the room, just like when she entered the building with the front desk, a wary look immediately fell on his features. This was the first time that she'd actually set foot in the place since Andy did the registration while she was threatening to kill her sister as they moved her out of their little home finally, and now that she'd made her presence known -- and on second thought, wearing a long-sleeved shirt would have been nice, and keep those eyes away from her arms -- it was lame and uncomfortable.

"Where's Jack?" she asked instinctively, snarling the words out and sitting down in the chair in front of Jamm's desk. 

"Oh, he's currently with the nurse getting cleaned up," Jamm almost purred and April wanted to vomit. 

"Why?"

"He's a little artist," he said, "and I see where he gets it."

"Ew," April grimaced and wished that there were ten more people in the room probably for the first time in her entire life.

"So, how are we going to settle this?" Jamm asked, and April wished that Andy would have just punched this guy once. It would have been so cool, and then maybe they would have taken Jack somewhere else but, supposedly, this was the best school in the district. 

"I'll tell him it was wrong... wait, what did he do again?" she deflected his grossness as hard as physically possible without simply leaving, already wishing that Andy came with her. 

"He drew crazy stuff all over the other children," he cleared his throat and continued, "and I think, personally, that he should be expelled."

"What!?"

"Perhaps we'll just let him out for the rest of the day. This isn't the first time--"

"Andy never told me that," she muttered and shook her head. "Look, he's a kid. Kids do dumb things."

"Please just speak to him," Jamm gestured towards the door. "And, um," he started, smiling, "consider my offer?"

April grimaced and quickly left the room, taking Jack's hand and walking him out of the school. Indeed, his arms were smudged and colored, remnants of the goofy little pictures he'd either done to himself or had someone draw on him. At this point, she was more upset at the nurse for not letting her look at them. When they got to the car, mostly without talking, she took a deep breath and crouched down to look him in the eyes.

"So bud, what'd you do today?" she asked with a smile, like she hadn't just picked him up from the office.

"Nothing," he murmured and looked down. 

"Hey, I'm not gonna be mad at you. Just tell me," she reminded him. April was committed to this, and especially to being a better parent than she dreaded she couldn't be. So far, so good.

"They asked me to do it!" he defended immediately, loudly. "I was drawing on myself and he asked me to draw on him, and then Grace and then Jimmy and then--"

"Okay, I get it," April chuckled. "So you did it  _because_ the other kids wanted you to? You didn't draw on anyone that didn't want it, right?"

"No!" he half-shouted and April nodded.

"Good," she said. "Remember that, buddy. If someone doesn't want you to touch them, you don't do it okay? Got it?"

"Uh huh," he said. "But they  _said_ they wanted it! I just wanted to make them look pretty like you, mommy."

April couldn't help herself when she felt some weird, but not at all strange flame in her chest that was the same, new love that she never knew before having Jack. She made a noise she isn't particularly proud of, but to hell with it because this is her son not some lame adult, and she leaned forward to embrace him in a deep hug. 

"Well, you just have to stop doing it even if they want it this time okay?" she asked, him, smiling and holding him just a little bit more before breaking apart. "Their parents will get mad, okay?"

"All right," he groaned in a low voice before going to the backseat of the car.

April drove them back to the parlour, asking what else happened during the day and what other hijinks he got into (and it turns out, the only thing that really constituted as such was basically trading lunches and playing a bit too rough in recess) and, before long, she couldn't suppress her laughter at the strange ways he spoke of his teachers and other kids. Descriptions as simple as  _she's cool_ explained every bit about his friends that April needed to hear and, frankly, it was kind-of funny. He didn't seem to get the joke, especially when Jack said Mr. Jamm was a big dummy and she snorted, but by the time they got back, she was laughing at silly jokes he told that were clearly lifted directly from his father and he promised to draw the same things he did on himself for her later that day.  _  
_

In the end, April asked Andy to let her pick him up from school for a little while. It would help drive her boredom away, she told him, but he knew better. The loudest _aww_ she'd ever heard came from him when Andy realized, intuited, that she wanted to spend more time with her son.

He was just too damn good.


	174. Villa - Kicker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested as more of the tattoo artist AU (the full fic that started this universe is of course [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3619377)) but with the caveat of "pregnant April." I relaxed yesterday because it was my birthday and didn't really have all that much time to write anything, sadly.
> 
> So, yeah. Enjoy! I hope?

"Woah," April breathes out more than speaks. Her hands go to her stomach on instinct and she jolts forward an inch on their bed. 

"What?" Andy turns over, looking at her intently. If she has to guess, it's worry. "Babe, you okay--?"

"He, um, he did... um--" she blinks a few times and then laughs. 

Really, the last thing that April expected in her life was the concept of  _settling down_. She was used to living on the road, not really sticking to one place, and existing practically to watch her sister night and day and pretend that she could be better than either of her parents ever were at taking care of them. Maybe that part made sense, in some infinitesimal way, and all of this should be clear to her, but instead she's simply amazed that she's lying down on a bed that she owns and there's a soul of pure joy and love right next to her. 

Andy, though, he expects everything of this. To him, April is going to be the coolest mom ever and, really, he's not sure what he was even doing before April. Tattoos, yeah. Paying bills, seeing shows, buying stuff. It was all so plain and  _normal_ and not in the way like this felt. It was boring. With April, he never thinks anything other than  _holy crap, there's a baby in her and it's ours_.

"What's up?" he asks her again.

"He kicked," she says, running her hand up her disproportionate stomach. "Dude, c'mere." With that, April takes his hand and puts it against her stomach, looking down at where they're both resting against her with obvious impatience. It takes a few moments and just before she sighs out disappointment, a little  _nub_ taps at the side of her stomach and Andy can clearly feel the pressure there. "See? He kicked. Dude... our baby  _kicked_."

On some level, the kick did drive the happiness straight to Andy's heart. It wasn't just that, though. It was mostly the awe in her voice. The way April smiled and kept their hands on her belly, anxiously awaiting another before it happened and exclaiming with the same joy. Kissing briefly when it happened a second time, Andy couldn't help himself and leaned down to rest his cheek and ear against April. It takes him a minute to realize that the baby is either exhausted or no longer enjoying the whole kicking thing -- and, really, April could use less of the total ass kicking pregnancy was giving her so he didn't really mind -- and then, absentmindedly, he begins to hum.

The first thing to come to mind is a Pearl Jam song, probably totally inappropriate but it's what he has. April's hands feather through his hair while he hums, sings to their son. The thought, the simple  _thought_ of it all, brings an unstoppable grin to his face all the while - his  _son_ ;  _their_ son. 

"Hey babe," April finally interrupts him when he passes over the chorus once more, hopeful that this noise and all the love Andy already has for his little boy comes through.

"Hm?"

"I'm super glad we're doing this," she reminds him like he's not sure she's prepared for it. "Love you."

"Yeah, love you too," he says and leans up once more to kiss her softly. When they break apart, Andy opens his eyes and gives her that same grin that's been stuck to his face for who knows how long, and she returns it gladly. "Our baby's gonna be so awesome."

"The best."

"And he's gonna grow up to be a super cool guy who takes care of his mom and dad, and we're gonna love him so much," Andy trails off, whispering and muttering more about how amazing their kid is going to be and how he's the luckiest person in the entire universe. He lays himself down back at his spot, just beside her and cheek resting against her stomach, before sighing in content.

"We're gonna love him  _so_ much," April reaffirms and leans her head back, hands still in Andy's curls, to try and get some sleep in this absurdly comfortable position. Andy, however, wants to say everything he can to his son and hum every song he knows, play all of them on guitar, and be the greatest dad on the planet from this point forward.


	175. Retired Zombies and Candy Trades

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm taking Halloween themed requests over on [my tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com), and that's where this here request came from :)
> 
> Enjoy!

“I guess I just don’t  _get_ what you’re supposed to be,” Leslie said, squinting and shaking her head in confusion.

“I’ve already told you, like, a million times,” April scoffed. “I’m a retired zombie.” 

She picked at the  _Going Vegan_ sign – no more than a piece of construction paper tied around her neck by string – hanging on top of the “boring” clothes as she called them. It was one of Andy’s old outfits, and the length showed on her, even with the shirt tucked in and pants rolled up at her ankles.

“Isn’t it… a little too much? I mean won’t it scare–”

“It’s fine, Sonia and Stephen helped me with the makeup,” April said with a shrug as Andy emerged, a laugh already pouring out of him, with the boy triplets slung in his arms. 

“Hey, babe! Super awesome costume, as always,” Andy noted, eliciting a glare of an  _I told you so_ from April at Leslie. His own clown getup, sans blood and gore like April pleaded with him to have, was a huge hit with Westley. “Leslie, aren’t you dressing up?”

“Andy, I told you–”

“Sadly… some  _jerk_ is backstabbing me yet  _again_ –” Leslie growled, and this time April rolled her eyes and Andy just whistled and turned back around with the boys in tow. “April, he is a liar and a horrible man and the worst person on this entire planet Earth.”

“Leslie, you’ve met Donald Trump,” April said with an exaggerated grimace.

After a great sigh Leslie nodded her head. “Okay, fair point. That was harsh, but he… he is a terrible person and I hate his face.”

“He is being kinda mean for setting this thing up today,” April shrugged. “Whatever, I’ll try and talk to him after tonight. Andy’s super excited to do this, though.”

“Well, I’m glad I have two amazing friends that are willing to take such an incredible responsibility – one of whom I think of as practically my second daughter–”

“Leslie,” April whined.

“Okay,” she finished with a smile and after a parting word, April left to find Andy covered in triplets.

His makeup was smeared all over them, causing the former ghost and pumpkin to be doused in reds and blues everywhere. She couldn’t suppress a smile, and Andy’s laughter when she piled on top of him was so worth it.

Throughout the rest of the night, April kept getting text messages about how Ron was the worst and awful and she ignored all of them. Instead, she focused on people repulsed by the realistic brains sticking out of her forehead – a clever mix of prank dog crap, hamburger, and makeup of Andy’s invention – and then their immediate fawning over the tiny triplets and their tiny, admittedly cute costumes. Well, the ones now covered in paint and Andy’s, or Kip the Clown’s makeup. 

By the time they returned to the Knope-Wyatt house, Andy was offering trades of all sorts and April threw all of the hypersweet chocolate into everyone’s bags only to steal whatever was fruity or sour. She’d have to get into a bidding war with Stephen over those ones, but Andy was too soft. He ended up giving away most of his candy under the pretense that he’d get most of April’s afterward.

For that, they’d have to have a different kind of trade later.


	176. Carving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So continues Fictober, or whatever. Another Halloween-themed prompt from tumblr!
> 
> Enjoy!

"Babe, slow down you're gonna cut yourself," April warns Andy, watching him carve relentlessly into the dull orange pumpkin around the kitchen table, Jack in her lap and a large, blunt knife in his hand. "As much as I'd love to see blood just before Halloween, I'm not so into it being yours. Okay? Plus, going to the hospital sounds super boring right now."

"Aww," Andy says with a purr of affection before kissing April briefly. "Trust me. I got this. Don't worry about it!"

"That's what you said last time," April reminds him just before adjusting Jack in her lap. "This little tubster's gonna watch daddy carve into his namesake, right?"

She taps her fingers along her son's belly, the one year old's gleeful laugh exploding into the air and causing Andy to stop what he's doing to stare. Stare like he does for hours at a time, any day and every day. It's like he's looking into a life he never thought he'd get to have and if anything made April happy with her choices, it was that.

"Little Jack-o'-Lantern's gonna see–"

"Andy!" April interrupts him with a look that sends a wicked chill up his spine.

"What? You're the one who named him," he shrugs and goes back to carving the jagged smile of the decoration. April always complains about getting pumpkin guts all over her, then promptly demanding that Andy tell no one she said anything about getting gross stuff on her.

"Technically, you did," she points out.

"Thats, um–" he  _chunks_ into the next angle with about the same, sloppy dexterity as April, then chuckles. "That's a fine point. You're as smart as you are sexy."

April rolls her eyes, trying to mask the desire to keep going with where this first step of roleplaying always went. At least for the moment. Or, rather, until after they went out trick-or-treating and Jack was  _fast_ asleep. And in another room on the other end of the house, doors closed between them.

"Well–" and just then, before she could give a witty retort, Jack starts giggling incoherently. Mixed in with that, he says garbled nonsense and points at Andy still cutting through the pumpkin.

"Dude, lemme take over," she says.

"What? You told me I could–" but April's hugging Jack tight and kissing the top of his head before scooting her chair forward and switching their loads. "Oh, little guy wants to hang out with dad, right? Awesome. You're so awesome. You're the most awesomest, coolest, rad–"

April focuses on the pumpkin, and mostly where any excess seeds spill out, all while listening to Andy tickle, play with, and tell their son how cool he is and how happy he is.

It's almost ridiculous, but then again when she looks over the both of them have such  _massive_ smiles on their faces that she can't help herself before smirking over at them and returning to the boring work of making this pumpkin as terrifying as possible. Sadly, Andy's always look thrilled or happy. Maybe one year she'd have to do it herself again just so she could make a properly terrifying jack-o'-lantern to offset the grossly adorable, baby one they had.


	177. Contested

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously for Fictober as April in a costume contest similar to the wine tasting contest in the show. Went a little wacky, but that's just good fiction if I can be that pretentious.
> 
> Enjoy!

To 15-year old April there were two incredible sins that were totally, completely, irrevocably unforgivable. The first was that you were never supposed to wear something or do something just to make somebody happy. It was dumb, and that person was most likely not worth it in her clearly infinite experience as a veteran sophomore in high school. The elite of the elite, basically. Especially her, since the older kids were just  _awful_.

The second was that you should never  _ever_  desecrate Halloween. 

“Wow, sick vampire costume!”

“Whoa, dude. Check out Ludgate.”

“Oh my God, she looks so slutty,” and, arbitrarily and contrarily because she’s a high school girl and that’s how this works in the saddest of truths, “She should show more skin.”

“What’s she s’posed to be? Oh, cool–” and a thousand others that she could barely register.

Since when did wearing some leggings and not styling yourself at all count as a costume? April hates it, and hates all of them for their stupid schoolday costume parties or whatever. They’re a bunch of morons and she deserves better than this. When did people give up on traditional stuff that was all about worshipping the Devil and painting cool symbols on walls? When did it become Wal-Mart and capitalism and all those stupid buzzwords that she barely knew a colloquial definition for and yet they formed the foundation of her person, of everything she was. The worst part is that a few teachers even looked at her differently. 

This wasn’t Halloween, this was some stupid, sexified, commercialized messy affair that wasn’t Jack Skellingtons and goths. When she had her first kiss in middle school, April realized things like that weren’t fairy tales and dreams either. This was just another ideal bludgeoned to death by the real world first-hand and with a sadistic glint in its all-seeing eye. 

They never would be.

And that’s when she took a turn. Why not, if they were so convinced of this insanity, fuck with them? That’d show them. That’s how April, in her indie wisdom that clearly she only had and only a pretentious high schooler could pretend existed solely for them, figured it out. 

Someone had already signed her up for the costume contest, probably as a prank. It was probably just to get her up on a stage, quiet and shy but terrifying and creepy April Ludgate that people rarely ever heard speak, and pull a  _Carrie_ on her. Sadly, she didn’t have the telekinetic thing going on – and she’s tried, so don’t go there – so all she could do was beat them by playing into it. That’s how it worked, right?

 _Paw at the air_ , she thinks. A teenager, barely that, plays a sexy kitten-vampire-whatever and people  _clap_.

They clap and hoot and holler and April hates Halloween in this stupid town, hates Pawnee, hates these people, but plays up into it because that Knoblauch bitch is grimacing like she’s just smelled a cow carcass mixed in with her bath and it’s the best feeling April’s ever had. This was the showcase, and April can’t really do much. She plays at the sexy card.  _Teachers_ cheer. Chaperones, adults,  _dudes_ that are likely going to go home with a million thoughts in their head that she wants to vomit just thinking about.

“Third place, April Ludgate!” 

When they call it, she’s disgusted with herself but at the same time Stacy is horrified. She never wins anything.

April beat her.

This warrants a dead raccoon in her locker a week later, obviously. However, April’s already won. That’s how high school works, she guesses. It’s these weird cliques battling eternally, pushed by some weirdly omnipresent and powerful forced and made to split off into the usual groups. That’s how it worked, always. Except for Halloween, when April suddenly became known as the Queen. It was her Holiday, and her Time. When the time came around, year after year, she went to the stupid costume contests and wore exceedingly bizarre things – a hangman’s tree, the steps to Hell a.k.a. a step ladder missing one step so she could fit her head through it, a true hag of a witch replete with filthy robes – and won greater achievements. Suddenly, while she was on top for that second, April lost care for what Halloween was  _supposed_ to be. For now, these few years, she would use it to make fun of her bullies and the people that suggested she was anything and everything to get a rise out of her.

“She’s a slut–”  _yeah, I gave that one guy a handy and you’re busy fucking the whole school_. “She’s such a prude–”  _and yet I’m also a slut, weird._ “She creeps me out–”  _good!_

“She’s kinda cute–”

“She’s a butterface–”

“Jake said she barely knew what to do–”

“Jake said she wanted to do anal–”

It was high school again, after Halloween. She became silent, people ignored her. She ignored them. It was easy. But that  _one_ time of the year, when the freak thing was cute or desirable or in any way normal (though, hopefully abnormal even with her clearly superior weirdness) then it was her time to silently judge everyone while they lauded her strange behavior. April got to make fun of them without them even knowing it! It was perfect.

Except for Stacy. That was just the cherry on top, because for every ounce of bluster she had, saying that  _Halloween was stupid and this contest doesn’t matter_  because April knew better. Everything had to be about her, and about her winning it, and this time? This time, it was  _April Ludgate!_

For years. Years of extended socially inept agony slathered all over the stupid face of Stacy Knoblauch, shoving it in her face and laughing, and April couldn’t be any happier.

“Dude, she never talks–”

“I heard she doesn’t have any friends–”

“I bet I could hit that–”

“I bet you  _could_. Watch out for the maggots–”


	178. Haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested for Fictober, and it's a goofy haunted house thing so it might be fun... I hope?
> 
> Enjoy!

“Andy?”

It was mostly quiet in the bleak house. April had heard of it from a friend of Orin’s and, of course, looked it up to make sure it was real. The rotted floorboards seemed real enough when she heard them creak with her footsteps. Moldy, dusty carpet and a ceiling fan that seemed to spin of its own accord – sadly the only sighting of any remotely ghostly activity – were the standard for the ramshackle place. 

The smell was pungent and awful, a mix of stale bread and sweaty feet. The other part, the part that was actually scary, was that Andy was gone.

He’d left to go outside and use the bathroom. Ten minutes ago.

“Hey… Andy?” she called out once more. No reply. Just before she was about to huff exasperation and what was totally not nerves, he jumped in front of the meager light of her phone. 

She definitely didn’t scream. Or jump.

“Oh, babe sorry! I just found  _this_ –” he pointed at a dusty, red and crumpled bit of plasticky fabrics under his arm. “Super cool sleeping bag.”

“Ew.”

“No, seriously! It was in the kitchen. There were like computers and stuff, too!” Andy said it all in a whisper, and if for no other reason than that April felt a strange discomfort about this all. “Oh, and I was gonna go down in the basement too but then you called and, um, I figured we could snuggle in the sleeping bag?”

Despite his mischievous grin, April rolled her eyes. “You were going to go in the  _basement_?” 

“Well, duh… the door was open!” 

“Andy!” she whispered angrily.

“Aww!” he slinked forward and wrapped her in a big hug. Normally she’d melt into that, but the preceding  _aww_ meant he figured something out, or thought he did.

Sadly, Andy was usually too good at these things.

“What?” she asked, returning the hug because the promise of heat and his squishy, comfortable embrace was too much to ignore.

“You’re spooked!” 

“Am not!”

“Then let’s go check out the basement,” he offered.

“Fine,” April agreed, and off they went. Once they found the kitchen again, after Andy lost track and April suspiciously enough couldn’t quite find the right hallway leading to it anymore, the room was empty.

No computers, no sleeping bags. Nothing. When she shone the light over where Andy said the basement door was, that at least was right. Unlike what he told her, however, the door was closed.

“Andy?”

“What?”

“Didn’t you say the door was open?” she nudged him and pointed at the basement door. Andy turned and made a confused noise when he saw.

At that moment, just before April froze up unable to move and Andy grabbed her hand, pulling them along into the night and back into the car and  _far_ away from this house, the door slowly creaked open of its own accord.


	179. Trick or Treat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the last of the Halloween requests! I hope you had fun with them, and there's still some October left to enjoy the blast of silly, spooky fun! If you want to send a request, head on over to my [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) if you want to!
> 
> Enjoy!

“Andy, I just wanna go creep out old people–!”

“Babe, I promise we will. I super do, just… lemme get one house in?” he asks, almost begging and pointing at a clearly popular house on the street with streams of kids going up and away. She could barely stifle her chuckle, taking his outstretched hand and nodding. “You are the best wife in the world!”

“As long as I get the sour candy,” she remarks.

“Totally!”

“And the gummy stuff,” she tilts her head, pouting her lip. Andy gives a roar of laughter at her silly attempt at winning him over. “What?”

“Babe, we’re  _married_!” he reminds her, and yet April just looks side to side in confusion. “That means… we get to share  _all_ the candy.”

“That’s true,” she nods. 

“See!” he points at his head and chuckles again, pulling April along to the driveway line of kids.

It takes a few minutes before they’re at the doorstep. Along the way, kids stare at April in awe. They should, since the stupid authentic witch outfit took her hours to get ready. It was more trouble than it was worth, but the decaying flesh makeup and warts everywhere was  _ooh’d_ and  _woah’d_ over by kids all the time which simultaneously made Andy’s eyes sparkle with totally-not-tears and April feel a strange connection to the tiny monsters. Andy’s utterly ridiculous lumberjack costume – ridiculous because it was just his flannel and a beanie, and ridiculous because April shouldn’t be allowed in public with what she wants to do to him – didn’t pull nearly as many, which normally he’d be disappointed. Instead he spent a lot of time wiping away definitely-not-there tears with his tiny plastic axe when kids tugged on April’s robes and said she was cool.

At the doorway, the gentle-looking older woman chuckles at Andy and eyes April suspiciously.

“Trick or treat!” Andy shouts, holding his bag open in front of the lady. She smiles and laughs again.

“Aren’t you a little  _old_ to be out like this, young man?” she asks, a sly whip to her voice that April catches immediately.

“My  _husband_ and I are trick-or-treating because we’re awesome and not old, and lame, and handing out candy like a weirdo,” she bites back and Andy’s jubilant smile fades when she does. The look on the old lady’s face is priceless. Feigning confusing April switches tact. “I mean, trick or treat!”

They get their candy, a seemingly nonexistent pile for April and for Andy a massive mess of king-sized chocolate bars, an apple that gets tossed into her bag instantly, chip bags, and more. April sneers at it.

“I think she was trying to hit on you,” April tells him when they’re close to the next house that seems popular.

“Woah, what? Really? That’s weird.”

He stops when April glares at him.

“I mean, that’s dumb. She heard you say husband and everything!” he says  _very_ loudly so that anyone else could hear it as well.

“Right.”

“And everyone on the planet should know that Andy Dwyer--” he slings his tiny plastic axe onto his shoulder, eliciting a rolled lip that’s straining into a laugh from her. “Only goes trick-or-treating with one lady.”

April can’t help but laugh. She wants to call him a dork, amazing, and an idiot all at once but instead settles on laughter and leaning up to kiss him before hurrying off to the next house. Andy’s still confused what was so funny.


	180. Ann Perkins and the Vampire Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested for a non-Halloween thing, but I co-opted it into a Fictober prompt because, well, I had to!
> 
> Enjoy!

“What’s he supposed to be?” Ann asked, looking down at the black-clad and oddly white baby in April’s arms. 

She actually bothered to go out and attend the annual Ludgate-Dwyer pre-Halloween Halloween party. Or semi-annual. Either way, Ann got cards that were from them, usually just gags or a stupid card that would yell insults at her over and over always in April’s recorded voice. This time she took the kids, along with Chris, and decided it was time to see what was so amazing since the last time she saw the now expanding family. A few other people were there that Ann didn’t know, but the constituents seemed oddly full of people from Pawnee, and specifically the Parks Department.

 _So much for hating everyone who worked there_ , Ann thought smugly.

“A vampire!” April said with such enthusiasm that it worried Ann. 

Andy bobbed his head in that same jubilance. “He’s so awesome, and a tiny little vampire ‘cause he always bi--” he tried to say before April jabbed him in the ribs. “I mean, because vampires are cool.”

“Can I hold him?”

Normally this would cause April to scoff and pretend that Ann was made of diseases and awfulness, and instead Jack was handed over normally. She should have expected something was up, but was too excited to think otherwise. April barely let her talk in their “conversations,” let alone hold her child. 

_Maybe this will--_

But interrupting her thought was an oddly sloppy, gummy feeling nibbling at her finger. Looking down, Jack has it in his mouth and continues chomping away, albeit harmlessly. He looked so focused that Ann thought it was cute, if a little weird feeling.

“Yay! I told you he’d do it, babe,” Andy claimed with a joyous whoop after. April had yet another masked look of approval and happiness. “You totally owe me ten bucks.”

April huffed and handed a bill to him. A bill that was likely going to be deposited into the  _joint_ bank account Andy had called Ann with help on setting up. She just shook her head.

“Okay, can I have my vampire baby back?” April asked and scooped him up without an answer. Her face lit up in an instant and she nuzzled close to the baby, walking away to speak with Leslie -- or, in reality, show him off to her.

Andy stepped over beside Ann and beamed. It was the happiest she’d seen him in a long time, and this was  _Andy_ they were talking about. 

“She’s so amazing with him,” he mumbled.

“Yeah. I’m kinda surprised,” Ann admitted. It  _was_ a surprise hearing that they were having kids, and Ann wasn’t sure which part scared her -- more April or more Andy. “You guys are... happy?”

“Oh my God, she loves him so much. I know she, um, wouldn’t want me to tell you,” he laughed and spoke as quietly as he could to her. “She totally does all that babytalk to him all the time, and gets like super weird when you interrupt it. I mean, when I do. But I think she’s okay with me hearing it.”

“Okay...”

“I’m just saying, if you wanna get back at her for the... um, creepy phone calls,” Andy said and nodded with a grin before bounding off to join April by Leslie.

The creepy phone calls were her “invitation” to the party. Ann knew the affected voice right away, but played along anyways. Then they got really weird, and at really odd hours, and with voices she didn’t recognize.

The best part was that Ann had seen it. April would lean her face in close, tickle at him, and talk when no one could hear her or she was leaving the conversation, which was as abruptly as her phone calls. With a mischievous grin, Ann decided to pursue them through the house until she caught April being cutesy with her child. 

 _Yeah, that would totally show her,_ Ann thought.  _Catch her loving her child. That’ll get her!_

It was stupid, but at this point Ann wanted to prove that she still knew April wasn’t nearly as frigid or evil as she liked to pretend.


	181. My Bloody Cupcake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested on tumblr by lunabelles as "April/Andy costume shopping with Jack."
> 
> Enjoy!

“Ugh, these are all lame,” April exhaled. She sifted with one hand through the plastic pile of pumpkins, ghosts, more pumpkins, a silly ninja costume, and then yet another pumpkin. “Store bought costumes suck.”

Her other hand was busy holding onto Jack’s who refused to sit down or be held at the moment. He wanted to walk around and poke and prod everything around him, much to the dismay of his generally lazy and extremely tired mother. After picking through the costumes, she took his other hand and Jack walked in front of her, onto her feet. 

They stepped in unison, a simple and silly game they’d played since he could stand that didn’t seem to go away with his newfound independence.

“I told you we should let him be a beer can–” Andy started but then laughed awkwardly when April glared him down. “I mean, yeah. Let’s keep looking!”

April and Jack tottered around the aisle some more, taking careful steps together while Andy browsed.

“D’you think a pumpkin with, like, blood on it would be cool?” he asked, and April grunted disagreement. She focused more on looking down at the ground and her feet.

“There’s nothing creepy here,” she sighed.

“There’s a ghost!”

“Andy, it’s a pillowcase,” she said.

“Oh, right,” and she could hear him nod like it was obvious and he should have known. It only made her laugh under her breath.

They spent a few minutes ignoring the costume search, laughing and April telling him where she was going next only for him to try and sound out what she had said and repeat it in a gurgly mess of consonants and fumbled words. 

“Hey babe, you should check this–” he started, but then abruptly shut up.

Turning around slowly, Jack still balanced on her toes, they both looked up at Andy. He was holding a little costume with  _CUPCAKE_ in giant, stylized font on the packaging. April was busy inspecting the rest of the scene to notice, since his eyes were laser-focused on the two of them and she visibly saw his chest heave. His mouth was half-open and she couldn’t tell quite yet but it seemed like he was going to cry.

“Babe?” she asked, swinging Jack’s hands in hers outward and back in. “You okay?”

Andy sniffed loudly and nodded. “Oh, yeah. Um, yeah… totally fine,” he said, refusing to look at them. He focused at the package in his hands and sniffed again. “So, how ‘bout this one? I was thinking… um, like decorating it with creepy stuff?”

He presented the package and April smirked. Rolling her lips, she slowly walked Jack and herself over to him, watching Andy’s face break into a massive grin at the sight.

“Can I make him a zombie cupcake?” she asked and Jack tried saying  _zombie cupcake_ but only came up with a  _shwom grr_  and April couldn’t help herself, chuckling. 

“Seems like he’s into it,” Andy nodded, taking a deep breath. He crouched in front of Jack. “That sound awesome, buddy? You’re gonna be our tiny, bloody cupcake.”

“With guts and blood and everything,” April said excitedly, looking down at Jack. 

When Andy stood back up, he leaned his head down to kiss April quickly. She knew he wanted to say a thousand things and normally they would have right then. Right now though, they didn’t need to have this moment in a grocery store costume aisle. After all, they had some extra decorations to put on Jack’s absurd, gorey costume that he no doubt would be embarrassed about for years to come.


	182. Revenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested on [tumblr](http://anotheropti.tumblr.com) as "April and Sam tormenting clowns or other scary creatures at a haunted house." This one took forever to get back to, and then other fics cropped up that I just had to write! 
> 
> Enjoy!

Standing in a secluded corner, just far enough away from the path through the neighborhood’s yearly Haunted House, Sam watches her mother eye something. It was darkest there, a shade of the overhanging balcony and already low-light bringing a particular darkness that was all too comfortable for the pair.

“Mom, I told you this place is–” Sam starts but is hushed by a waving hand.

“Look,” her mother points to a little closet that slides open occasionally. It would be hidden save for a sliver of light flashing momentarily every time it opens. “I think that’s where they came from.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Sam pleads. She isn’t really bothered by the horrific imagery or anything. After all, her parents treat Halloween like most families celebrate Christmas. It’s the people jumping out at her and stupid jump frights. “C’mon, can we go?”

“Don’t you wanna get back at that jerk?” she says, pointing at the closet again. 

When they walked in, Sam was immediately set upon by a neighbor dressed as Leatherface, alarmingly realistic chainsaw and all, and though her mom only jolted back in surprise Sam instinctively ran off to this very corner. It took a few moments to calm her down, and the flame of revenge sparked in her mother’s eye afterward.

“How do you even know he’s in there?” Sam asks.

“Because I’ve worked at these dumb places before. They always have stupid closets they jump out of,” she says and rolls her eyes. “Trust me, it’s super lame back there.”

“Wait, you worked in a haunted house?”

“Being able to dress up as a witch and cover myself in fake blood? Duh,” she says with a smirk. Sam chuckles and looks out from their corner of the house. “So, how d’you wanna do it?”

“Um, we don’t have many options do we?”

“Okay, basic stuff,” April nods and bites her lip, thinking. “Still your show, though. You choose how we screw with this kid.”

“Wait…” Sam smiles and starts unlooping her belt from her jeans. “It’s dark on either side,” she starts explaining. It was so simple, but oh so satisfying. “Ma, gimme your belt!”

April reluctantly follows suit and then shares a wicked grin with her daughter when she’s the simple little knot.

“Quick thinking.”

“Robbie showed Victoria how to do this,” Sam shrugs and points at the sliding door again.

for a few more minutes they lay in wait, watching the closet door. After the newest group of people entered and were spooked by the same guy wielding the chainless saw, he leapt back into the closet. Sam and April sidle alongside the opposite wall where the overhead shadow hid them, waiting for their moment to strike.

When it seemed clear, they dashed to the other side. Sitting on either side of the sliding closet door, they held the extra long belt contraption at ankle height and tried to suppress their laughter. 

A few moments later, a handful of people walk into the hallway and the door slides open. The employee comes out in a rush, not looking, and sprints out to terrify this next batch with his shtick and harmless weapon. Or, rather, that’s what he would have done had his foot not caught on the clasped belts and he tripped, falling into a ball in front of the would-be victims.

The group of girls point and laugh at the groaning form, April and Sam high-fiving each other before a rather tall man with a safety orange jacket began walking towards them with a stern look on his face.

Her mother hops over to her, belts lost on the floor. “Cheese it,” she whispers to Sam and grabs her hand.

They hear a scuffle and Sam looks over her shoulder. The tall man tripped over the gangly legs of the Leatherface, fuming as they sprint out of the house with only the delicious laughter of revenge as their company into the otherwise dull Washington night. 


	183. Abandoned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been shifting focus on fic-writing these days, so NOLY has sadly taken a hit. To make up for that, I took a break from writing AU drabbles to add this little dose of our favorite angsty wonder!
> 
> Taken from a tumblr prompt as per the title.

In the days following her return, despite seeing friendly faces and one too friendly that she wished would just leave her alone, April had never felt more alone.

Eduardo was there, sure, but he was in all actuality insanely dull. It became even worse when he started hanging around Andy, clearly starting an honest friendship there. Another mark from her list, there!

 _Maybe it’s the way I’m treating him_ , she argued in her head one day. Work was proving too boring to pay attention to, as always. Sadly, that meant more time pondering.  _No, that’s dumb. He’s lame and stupid._

But there’s a strange irony all the while, wondering these absurd thoughts and thinking they’re right. Despite refusing to herself that they could be very wrong, and that she’s being stubborn –  _she is not_ – it’s quiet. Ron’s quiet isn’t sturdy and supportive, and she confides in the surrogate oak more than him these days, especially when Eduardo wants to see her. It’s easier to sulk in a field by herself, anyways.

 _Is that how it’s going to be again?_ she thought, flipping another page in her magazine and only half-reading the pages.  _Alone. By myself._

Work became work again, and yet April never wondered if it was her fault. It was always his, for making her feel  _this_ way so strongly; and it was his fault for making her act  _this_ way; and it was definitely his fault for making her think  _this way_.

_Alone?_

April glanced to Leslie’s office, found it empty. She avoided looking at the mesh pencil pot on her desk, or the little plucked flowers within and especially not the folded post-it note inside.

 _Alone_.


	184. Insecure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading :)

“What about this?” April asks for what must have been the twelfth time. Andy opens his eyes as he was instructed every time, sitting on their bed and waiting for her.

The surprisingly snug-looking sweater that Leslie had given her doesn’t cling or reveal anything that her ballooned stomach didn’t already show. Andy heard people say a bunch of random crap about how different she would look, and how seeing your wife pregnant or give birth would change how he saw her forever. It did, but not like they likely meant.

“You look awesome babe!”

“You’ve said that about all of these,” April complains, groaning afterward and looking down at herself. “Why’d you have to make me look like this?”

“Maybe we should’ve made a skinny baby, babe,” Andy wonders for a moment before standing up and walking over to April. “Then, you wouldn’t have to worry.”

“Andy–!”

“I mean, you look great! You really do, honey. I swear,” Andy promises. And she does, and he can’t get over all of the ways he craves her now. Maybe it was some weird, paternal thing that drove him mad. He doesn’t think about it often, or for any amount of time. “You look more beautiful than I’ve ever seen you in my whole life.”

“Really?” April asks incredulously and with more than a hint of caution in her voice.

“Yes,” he insists. Taking her hands in his, Andy threads his fingers between hers and steps a bit closer. “Seriously, babe. You know I’m into you.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” April monotones, but her lips curl up into a genuine smile. 

“I could maybe, uh,  _remind_ you before we go to dinner with Leslie?” he offers with raised eyebrows and a grin.

“Andy you... you--” she stops, biting her bottom lip before letting out a short huff of breathy laughter. “You always have the most awesome ideas.”


	185. Five Minute Drabble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was tagged on tumblr to write a drabble in five minutes and leave it as is, unedited. I'm also putting it in this because, well, why not?

Andy would likely never get used to this. 

When April was angry, he dealt and tried to figure out what the problem was. When she held out her hands and let him see her emotions bared, he wanted to know them and love her for them; and when she was warm, comfortable, and nestled beside him, he loved her for being able to be that.

Andy would never get used to when she stared blankly at walls, answer monotone and simple, or sit on the bed for hours doing... nothing. Nothing but looking up, thinking, and staring at the ceiling.

Even worse was when her breathing started faster, and she wouldn’t stop blinking, and she always rolled over to one side to look away. Away from him, he didn’t know. All Andy could do was walk over to the bed and lie down, work an arm over her side and search for her hands. 

Those little shivers too, those he wouldn’t get used to and  _hated_ them more than anything else. She seemed afraid to touch him.

“Sorry,” she whispered, quickly threading her fingers into his and sniffing loudly. Her voice shook for what felt like hours, it shook and shook like too much dead weight in her mind. “I-I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” he said, kissing the back of her head and running his thumb along her hand.

“Sorry for being so hard to deal with,” she said like she hadn’t heard him. April’s voice was so uncharacteristically small then, like she wasn’t herself in these strange states. “Sorry for being so hard to lo--”

“Babe, you’re amazing,” Andy interrupted her before she could say it. The shivers were despicable, but her saying  _that_? No, he couldn’t deal with that. “I love you so much, like, you don’t even know... and, and you’re so awesome. I know you--” he sighed, lowering his voice like someone might hear what he was saying. “I love you no matter what, y’know that right?”

She was quiet. Instead of answering, April turned around in his arms. She left her head ducked, avoiding his eyes and Andy didn’t care. After lying down again, April snuggled her head into his chest.

She didn’t say another word, and Andy felt something warm and wet against his chest. He held her, hoping it was enough.


	186. Blissful

A very long time ago, April would have sneered at all of this.

They lived a relatively…  _normal_  life, sans frequent outings to motels as the fleeing thief Janet Snakehole chased by the determined Burt Macklin. Besides, there were the frequent family movie nights which included movies that were a little too gruesome for young children.  _Children_ , even. April might have had fleeting thoughts, wonders, and she might have been curious about the idea but she never dreamed it’d be real before her. 

The reality of it was always equal parts terrifying and impossible to fathom.

Jack spent his time out, driving with his newfound sense of freedom. Robbie spent more and more time bouncing out of the house then next door, and Sam and the twins stayed relative recluses. As April mentally checks her list as to where they are, a strange holdover that she couldn’t imagine having years ago but as worrying motherhood loomed just took a stronger grip on her, she can’t help but smile fondly at the thought of hearing Roberta exclaim her return, sigh, and slump onto the couch for one of her legendary, immovable naps; or see whether Sam wanted any part of the sun or  _outside_ at all for once.

“Hey babe?” Andy calls out for her, breaking the reverie. April blinks twice and sees the backyard clearly again. They’re alone back out here, the kids secluded to their rooms or out with friends. 

He looks at her expectantly and she remembers the cold, sweating glasses in her hands. Walking over to the hammock that Andy spent far too long setting up, stumbling quite a few times and bearing it with a grin that only matched hers and the kids’ watching him, April slinks between his legs as best she can. She offers him one of the Adult Lemonades – his words, not hers – and she let herself sink into his chest. 

“Hey,” he says to her after a few moments of the idle, creaky swinging being their atmosphere.

“Hmm?” she asks without looking back. 

“Oh… nothing,” he says with that same sigh of content that April is always outright giddy to hear –  _giddy_ , a word April would have  _never_ used to describe herself if it wasn’t over fake or real blood. “Love you.”

“Yeah, love you too,” she answers back and turns ever so slightly to settle into him better.

Just then, the hammock sends them toppling to the ground. Their glasses spill all over the grass, and April’s in a heap in front of Andy. It only takes him a second to ask if she’s okay, and for April to respond with a sincere fit of giggles at how  _ridiculous_ this all is.

Years and years ago, she might have leant into the fact that she was okay. Usually that meant deeper, warmer holding and that necessity of security. Right now though, she just wishes someone had filmed their likely ridiculous flop onto the grass.

Andy responds with that grin of his, lopsided as always, and a loud, warm cackle and that alone puts her at ease.


	187. Awed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I've been having a hard time finding any time at all to write between my second job (that's a yay thing, not a boo thing) but this has been floating in my head for a while! I hope you enjoy :)
> 
> Prompted as "Awed."

While everyone else was clearly enjoying themselves, a raucous-for-the-Midwest Holiday party going on around them, April and Andy took to a dimly lit corner of Ron’s office for a little solitude. After a few minutes, already tired and Andy of course already sweating, April nestled herself into him, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder. 

His right hand was about her waist, and his left meeting it at her knee. It was an amazingly comfortable position she didn’t want to get out of for the rest of her life.

“Hey,” he said quietly, and April perked her head to the side a little to show she was listening but seriously didn’t want to move. “Hey, babe. Um, so… it’s gonna be the new year and stuff, so yeah.”

April chuckled against his shoulder and rolled her head so that she could keep her cheek smashed up there, comfortable and drowsy. “I know, right?” she said sarcastically, and Andy grinned. “What’s up, babe?”

“Dunno, just thinking about lame stuff like… I dunno, it’s cool that I got to spend the year with you and be, like,  _married_ to you and stuff,” Andy said almost like he was embarrassed to speak the words. “I know you hate this stuff. So, yeah. I love you a whole lot. Like, I really do and I know–”

“Why would I hate that stuff?” she asked, curious why he thought that. April was too soon to sleep to be asking these serious questions, but it struck her as odd.

“I dunno, you get mad at me when I talk about your emotions and stuff when we’re not alone.”

“We are alone, dude,” she chuckled and leaned over to kiss him on the corner of the mouth lazily. “Besides, this is totally a thing I want everyone to know.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I want everyone in the whole  _world_ –” she stressed that by sitting up straight in his lap and locking her hands behind his neck, staring down at him. “To know that I’m so… happy that we got to spend a year together, and I wanna spend, like, a hundred more with you because I love you.”

As she spoke April got quieter and quieter, until she was barely whispering. 

“Babe, I know I say this a lot,” Andy grinned, hands at her waist needy and gripping the hem of her shirt in a way that screamed  _this is too much clothing_ , “but you are the most awesome person on the planet.”

April smiled her shy, little rolling of her lips before going in to taste those words herself. After only a few, heavy moments, a knocking on the window told them that the bit of bare skin they were showing was too much for a proper government setting.


	188. Possessive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another fic from me! Weird, I know. It feels so strange, this whole "not writing" thing. Hopefully I can stick to my word and work on other, longer fics to keep myself busy and get some fun April/Andy out for y'all :)
> 
> This one here was requested anonymously as, "Possessive". Enjoy!

In the food court just outside a terminal in the rinky-dink Pawnee airport, April made an agitated groan for the third time in a minute. She pushed herself closer to Andy in the tiny booth they were sharing, shoving her half-eaten breakfast sandwich to the side. 

“Ugh, this is so lame,” she groaned, settling the side of her head against Andy’s shoulder. “I hate this stupid job already.”

“Babe, you haven’t even gone yet!” Andy said with a confused chuckle. “I’m sure you’ll rock.”

“Duh, it’s super easy,” she said with a roll of her eyes that he couldn’t see. “Doesn’t mean it can’t suck, and be lame… and dumb.”

“I know, hon,” he said reassuringly. “Oh, maybe I could go with you and we could just, like, do it on the plane.”

“That would make me feel better… but Leslie does need you for stupid important, stupid things–”

“Oh, right,” Andy said, shaking his head. “Sorry, babe.”

“It’s fine,” April said with just as much of a whine in her voice as she could manage before getting disgusted with herself. “At least Ben won’t be here to complain and talk about whatever dumb in-flight movie is on.”

“But he will be there to complain about the job with you!” Andy replied, saying it with what was probably meant to be reassurance.

“Ugh… I’m so glad I managed to wait a week,” she said, moving her offhand not rummaging around, trying to find his underneath the table, to fidget with his shirt. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“If you find some super cool chick and leave me for her, I’ll kill her,” April whispered to him. 

It  _was_ a thought in the back of her head. Sure it was silly but that didn’t stop it from intruding on her mind at practically every moment of their last week together – for  _months_  – and frankly, April had enough. It  _was_ stupid. Though, in all seriousness April would be likely to kill a mistress in a jealous rage. She couldn’t imagine Andy doing that to her, but at the same time the thought of being convicted for a crime of passion sounded oddly  _cool_ to her. Minus the whole infidelity part, but that was just a detail. 

April tucked the idea of using this little scenario for some alone time after coming back, a nice little rendezvous for the two of them. She fiddled with his shirt again and shuffled a bit more to get even closer to Andy.

“Aww–”

“I mean it,” April repeated in a low, deathly growl. 

“You’re so hot when you’re creepy,” Andy said back, low, and rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand. “Think we could–?”

“Bathroom?”

“You’re so smart, babe,” Andy said incredulously and walked out of the booth with April, hand in hand, toward the bathrooms just before she left for her flight.

Afterward, hair a mess (and earning a fist pump from Andy, as always) and with her clothes more ruffled than before, April wondered why her mind could be such an asshole sometimes.


	189. Cut - A Better Place, a Better Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is a thing. A Christmas gift, kinda? I dunno, it's definitely here. 
> 
> Inspired by the song of the same name, which is very much so featured in the fic. Have fun!

In the dimly lit apartment, the sole sounds were the scraping of snow outside, loud Christmas night traffic of people scurrying to rush home after seven too many drinks, and the tiny celebration within. A single string of red and green LED bulbs Andy found one day sat strung up along the head of the curtain, flickering in and out throughout the night from the hearty Christmas dinner of noodles and splurging boxed wine to now, huddled together with April sitting between his legs and her laptop on hers mostly for the warmth. To say it was quaint would be an understatement, and yet the cold air of Indianapolis was staved for the intense body heat Andy radiated constantly. 

As the night drew on, Andy considered his gift carefully and especially, throughout the day, he wondered how to deliver it. He  _ did  _ own and play the guitar, albeit poorly these days considering the horrid scar on his palm, but something about the ease he could “give” her the gift, Andy decided to wrap his arms around her too-small waist and keep them snuggled close.

“Hey,” he said with a short movement of his arm to shake her just a little bit more awake. A few chugs of boxed wine beforehand, she’d still be mostly awake. “April, hey we still haven’t done presents.”

“Because I don’t have the money for any,” she said like she was reminding him, almost scolding. 

“Well, like my mom always said,” Andy started with a smug tone, “the best presents always come from the heart anyways.”

There was a loud sigh from April before she spoke. “I should probably hate that,” she said, before looking over her shoulder with a glimmer of a smile, “but… I kinda can’t.”

Andy laughed and reached forward, brushing her hands from the laptop keyboard. One of hers reached back and toyed with the drawstring on his hoodie, the other stuck awkwardly between her legs, grasping for more heat, while Andy typed poorly. 

“You can’t look!” Andy warned her, and April rolled her eyes before closing them. “Oh wait… wait, wait.”

He took her headphones out of her jacket, hoping she wouldn’t notice  but as it turned out trying to pull out a poorly wrapped ball of headphones out of a jacket pocket that someone was literally wearing was  _ sort of  _ hard. She only laughed and started a few sentences before chuckling and quieting again until Andy set one earphone up to her ear and moved one to his. Pulling up the song, Andy waited and found the one. It hit him one day, while he was browsing through a silly little LP store. The track name stuck out to him, oddly familiar and strangely painful in a sort of detached way, and it wasn’t until he sampled it that he understood why he felt that pull to it and why April would as well.

The first few lines, April stayed still in his arms, still messing with his shirt, and they listened to the Streetlight song together, sharing headphones. When the band kicked in, and the lyrics followed, April’s motions stopped altogether. She tugged hard on that drawstring once before her hand shook and slinked down towards his. April worked her fingers between his easily, and he held. 

When the chorus hits and Andy thinks about April waking up, bright eyed with the sense that everything would be fine, he smiled against her hair. He kissed the back of her head, waiting for the instruments to pile back on and the anger in the vocalist to seep through in the slashed stereo setup. Andy already had the words memorized, feeling them imprinted on him instantly, and mouthed them against her hair.

“Andy,” she whispered, the song still riding the high of the punk blaring.

“Yeah?”

She didn’t answer back, transfixed in the music for a moment. After a deathly pause, she gripped his hand harder. “Is this your present?”

“D’you like it?” he asked, quiet and huddling closer to her so that April could feel him warm and near. “I dunno, it’s probably super dumb but… I, um, I heard it at some store and kinda thought about--”

“Me,” she said slowly. 

He opened his mouth to speak before settling back into her. Sighing, he relented, “Sorry.”

“Andy,” she breathed and turned her head before deciding better of it and staring at the laptop. “I’m gonna play this every day, and I’m gonna listen to these lyrics every day, and I’m gonna think about you.”

“Every day?” he asked, a little more hopeful than he should have let on.

“Y-Yep,” she nearly  _ whimpered _ , and her hand thrust in his curled into an iron claw-grip. “I know it’s stupid, but stuff like this helps--”

“It is so not dumb!” Andy protested a little too loudly. “Hey babe, you like it I know… like you’re not alone in this?”

“Yeah, but--”

“I know, I know you know I  _ know  _ you know I’m here…” he trailed off and sighed. “Wait, no. I know  _ you  _ know that I  _ know  _ that you--?”

“Dude, shut up,” April said with a quivering voice shaking somewhere between laughter and something else that Andy tried to avoid. “I get that you get it.”

“I am here,” he said slowly.

“I know,” April replied quietly, barely whispering because Andy didn’t really need to hear it. He knew. “I love you,” she said, and much louder this time,.

“Love you too,” Andy whispered, hugging her a bit tighter with the arm across her stomach and squeezing her clasped hand. “So, so, so… so much.”

The song sparked with intensity at that moment, kicking up tempo for a brief half-minute, and April turned her head to look at him with dry, though dark eyes. She gave him a sure, if small smile but for the curl of the corner of her mouth.

“I know.”


	190. Kindred Spirits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to lunabelle! 
> 
> This is a gift to her that, really, I owe her at this point. This comes from an AU that I wrote in my smut collection, Whole Lotta Love, and if you want a little more context for the scenes beforehand it's... well, somewhere in there :D
> 
> So, yeah. Single parents AU! Enjoy :D

In the waiting room, April tosses out of the gross pile of papers and fights the wrinkles out of her skirt, trying to work out the previous session and reacquaint herself with not leaning into a wall for support. The guy behind her, salt-and-pepper hair and a wide grin on his face, is Andy. 

This may or may not have been the first time they actually spoke to each other, and April is completely fine with that. She hasn't been on a date in too long, and hasn't bothered with people in general for who knows how long and this guy, this  _Andy_ with his wry smiles and hands that cautiously moved from her waist just moments ago, is direct. He got to the point, and he knew what he wanted. In that moment, it was her and for that, she tried to keep that restraint held close to her chest. Instead of revisiting the closed classroom, likely a mess and surely smelling of  _something_ naturally unwholesome and unwelcome in a classroom, they sat across from each other once again.

Business as usual.

"So," he starts with a long breath after like he's trying to mask his obvious exhaustion. From the sounds of it, it's been a while for him as well. "Um, your kid. How old is... he?"

"She's fourteen," April offers.

"Wow."

"Crazy world," she says, already sensing a boredom she desperately doesn't want with this Andy guy. "Yours?"

"He's sixteen, and, um, you... well, you don't," he shook his fist in the air like he was about to say something and thought better of it. He chuckles and continues a moment later with, "You sure don't look old."

"Had her when I was seventeen. Thought it would be cool to do it without protection and freak my mom out with a crazy demon baby," she says with a dark laughter, trying to imagine Sam as a practical joke and coming up short. She laughs again. "I mean, she's definitely demon-spawn."

"Gross."

"I know, right?" April says, following his half-disgusted and half-amused look with a smile that she can't seem to tone down. Nothing with Andy is toned down, not even his strong,  _strong_ grip and his face. Even for a- "How old are you?"

"Fifty," Andy answers with a grin. "Had him with, um... my ex." He quiets, and April picks up the cue not to ask. Instead, she spins that number in her head a few times.

 _Okay, almost twenty years. That's a number,_ April thinks to herself and wonders if she shouldn't have let him keep his little trophy in his pocket.  _And yet..._

"So I just fucked an old dude?" she says with a low purr before laughing again, trying to stifle it and only letting out a weird chortle. Anything to lighten the mood. "Cool."

"Well, you didn't seem to mind," Andy says with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face he could likely muster. April's face burned hot in a matter of seconds, and she crossed her legs pointedly. 

"D'you really not know what your kid did?" she asks, finally. As much fun, and potential fun later, this back-and-forth barbed, sexually released flirting was, she finds herself strangely curious.

"Eh, he probably just did doughnuts in the parking lot or something stupid. Way better than the dumb stuff I did in school," Andy waves her off and chuckles, scratching his scraggly facial hair. "I totally pantsed my principal when I graduated, so at least he hasn't done something that stupid..."

"You mean awesome?" April says, scoffing.  _Hot and cool?_ April thinks, sitting up and at the edge of her seat. She eyes his pocket.  _You can keep those now, Cool Hot Oldguy._ "All I did was scare off teachers with pig guts and dress like Santa in June."

Andy's face hit that same, eerily  _cheery_ smile and he laughed. It was deep, and warm, and felt as strong and solid as everything else about him. The height difference probably helped too, but April couldn't stop herself from joining in and before long they were sharing stories like the one time that April left a hornet's nest she carefully extracted in a girl's locker; or the time Andy backed his truck in the school and literally ran  _through_ the school. When their kids emerged together, eyeing each other awkwardly the way only kids who are aware of each other vaguely can do, April and Andy are nearly rolling on the floor, gripping their sides with painful laughter, and sharing the stupidest high school stories like they were old friends reuniting. 

In a sense, it seemed more like kindred spirits finding each other again.

When they pick themselves off of the floor, April straightens her skirt again and Andy flattens his collar over and over. It's so obvious, but maybe the two of them are oblivious enough to ignore it. 

When they leave, Andy's already given her his number and she's wondering if they'll stop to eat or if she'll go to his place and recreate that classroom over and over. As April and Sam step into the car, her daughter only has a few words to say to her.

"He's cool," she says, and April answers that with a smirk.


	191. Ugh, Mom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Popped into my head. It's really stupid, but I hope you can enjoy it!

You know what’s fun? Getting to sit by yourself at lunch because Andy is doing something stupid and _helping_ people -- setting up some kind of lame stand for Leslie’s little campaign hosts -- and eat alone. The eating alone part isn’t the worst, but knowing that she could be doing something else instead, namely Andy, kind-of puts the kibosh on this whole, “enjoying isolation time” for Ms. Introvert.

Or is it Mrs. Introvert now? 

April loses track of that, trying to remember why this was so fun to her before. She could stare at people, freak them out, and spit milk out of her mouth into her purse, or rather Natalie’s purse, to accent the horror at the cafeteria. But that was roughly a third as awesome as laughing with Andy here. She will put up with it though, because at least alone is better than with someone annoying.

And just like that, Leslie makes her appearance in the cafeteria. As if being at her own setup wasn’t important -- and it totally was, but she was likely convinced to eat _something_ since she likely had stayed up all night with an overly cooked fast food burger as her supper -- she sits down across from April.

Not that Leslie is annoying, really. April certainly has affection for the oddly vibrant, positive crazy lady who essentially shepherded her from total apathy to almost-total apathy.

“Is it okay if I sit here, April?” Leslie asks despite being, quite literally, sitting there. “Great, thanks! I just need to grab something to eat. Ron told me that I should probably have something to eat other than these granola bars, and Ann agreed. Also, Ann and Ron are talking a lot do you think that’s weird? Probably not. Anyways, how are you?”

To April, in that moment she wishes nothing more than to vanish from sight. Half of what Leslie said had went clear over her head, or through one ear and out the other, but she was sure of one thing.

“Ann sucks,” April replies with a snap of the shirt’s fabric around her wrist back into place. “I don’t wanna talk about her during lunch.”

“Oh, April,” she says like a scolding mother, all disappointment and cautious worry. She shifts instantly with the strange, leering eyes that trigger April’s suspicion. “Well, you look lovely today. Are you and Andy going out tonight?”

“We never go out,” April says proudly. She wears a real smirk for the entirety of her input. “We like to stay at home, order tons of takeout, watch TV naked and--”

“Got it,” Leslie interrupts with a raised hand. April feels her face blossom with heat and then chuckles. “So, how are you two?”

“Ew, what are you? My mom?” April lashes back without thinking. Leslie’s cheery, rosy demeanor instantly fades and she nods as if accepting defeat. A strange, not unfamiliar but definitely unwanted feeling surges into the back of April’s throat. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m just _so_ jazzed up about this event. JJ said he was going to cater, and Andy, in fact, your husband. Your _husband_ , April, is doing most of the waiting,” Leslie says quickly, like she’s trying to restrain herself from blowing up with excitement. 

“He asked to be paid, right?” April asks.

“Of course. After Ron told him to ask, that is,” Leslie says and April doesn’t dare to hide her grin. “Seriously, April. How are you two?”

That bit of self-hating guilt washes away in that question because, to April’s ears, it’s genuine. Everything Leslie Knope is genuine, from her questions to her worries and cares, and in that fleeting breath April realizes that what she said earlier -- not earlier as in months prior at her own wedding -- might just be right.

“Actually, he’s really awesome,” April says quietly, looking down at her half-eaten plate and wondering why Leslie hadn’t even ordered anything yet despite several opportunities to escape and go to the lunch lines. “And we... we’re great. Thanks for asking.”

The reason Leslie never jumped away, April realizes, is because of that one word: genuine. Leslie Knope, if nothing else, could be that for her. And, really, the thing April needs now, bored without her giant of a husband to keep her company, is someone to just _be_ around.

Of course, only like Leslie could, she responds with a warm smile, a tittering giggle, and an honest, “That’s so good to hear!”

It really, really is.


	192. Dumb Grocery Stores

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for nezoid's birthday, a friend I met on tumblr! She's been great since as far as I can remember, really. It wouldn't make sense for me to do anything BUT write her a fic today! Plus, I haven't written a ton about the kids lately. So, yeah, have some silly family shopping fluff.
> 
> Have a great day, Dio :D

“Andy!” April yelled for what felt like should have been the last time today. “You can’t... ugh, you’re gonna hit her head on something.”

“What? I never hit anyone’s head on a door!” Andy claimed, holding Lucy’s tiny fists in his hands, the little girl straddled on his shoulders. “Huh, baby? Daddy never let you run into anything!”

“Well, okay. Whatever,” April scoffed again, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, I get it,” Andy said, walking past Jack and Robbie corralling Sam around while Victoria smacked her feet around inside of the shopping cart. He walked closer to her and leant down just a bit. “You think I’m too tall to do it!”

“Well, just because they’ve got, like, a hundred dumb signs and they’re all on wires and if she hits her head she’ll cry and babe I don’t need that right now--”

“Well, if _I’m_ too tall--” he lifted Lucy up gingerly, letting her gasp in surprise and then giggle with curiosity like only a toddler could. “Then you, babe-” he said, perching Lucy on April’s shoulders. Hands went into her hair and then around her neck in a little, balancing embrace. “Are perfectly tiny!”

“Shut up,” April muttered, turning around, her hands now around the child’s fists palming her shirt.”C’mon guys,” she called out. “This store is lame.”

“Lame!” Jack and Robbie repeated, loudly.

“But what’s lamer?” Andy asked seriously, catching up to the horde of demons he called his family.

“Uncle Nerd?” Robbie guessed, referring to Ben who, the first time Roberta said a word to him, was instantly declared a nerd. From then on out, that was his nickname.

“I love you so much,” April said almost absentmindedly, looking down the aisles and wondering just how in the hell they were going to fit everything into that stupid car of theirs.

All in all, minus the spill in the cereals aisle that was caused _mostly_ by Jack and a little by Andy; and the way that Robbie bounded off at one point to steal a single gummy bear from the candy section; _and_ at the register when Lucy wouldn’t let April put her down despite a sore neck and needing to get groceries onto a conveyer... well, it was just another day for the Ludgate-Dwyers.


	193. Totally Not the Worst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been WAY too long! Have this drabble I wrote at 5am like a crazyperson.
> 
> Requested anonymously _forever_ ago.

April fumes at the stupid screen of the Gryzzlphone, wishing this _stupid_ call would connect and that Leslie would just pick up her phone. Urgent, random house calls weren't April's favorite thing in the world, and she really didn't need Leslie to have vanished from her house at two o'clock in the morning for some lame reason like work.

This was, also, the only real alone time she'd had all day. Sure, kids were weird and said the most bizarre crap - especially goaded on by April - but, right now, she wants to sit and relax. Or, really, relax as much as the current flesh-passenger in her uterus would let her. Finally, the fuzz that always comes with the first few moments of these really sub-par connections breaks through, and Leslie's face is bright in April's face.

"Good morning, April!"

"Ugh," she groans, wondering if she should just go to sleep instead and worry about this in the morning.

"Why'd you call? Are you delivering? Is Andy there? I can call in some favors down in D.C. and get you-"

"Leslie, I'm only six months in calm down," April says with an only partially annoyed roll of her eyes. "I just... could I ask you for some, um, help?"

"Oh, of course! I was up anyways. Y'know, the only thing more exciting than redrawing district lines is being the one _in charge_ of the whole thing! God, April-"

"Oh my God," April interrupts Leslie before her brain explodes. "Please, I just need you to tell me that I'm not the worst, okay?"

Leslie quiets instantly.

"So, today Jack really didn't want to go to preschool, right?" April starts, the words annoying her already. "Ugh, and I didn't let him and he called me the worst mom ever, and I... I dunno."

"Oh, April..."

"I'm terrible, right? He wasn't sick, though. If he was super, duper sick then we could have hung out or something, but-"

"April, this is... _hm_ ," Leslie stops herself and then a loud snort erupts over the call. Leslie hides her face and a cackle is all that comes from the call.

"What?"

"April, I'm just... oh no, here it comes," Leslie laughs again and when she looks back at April, she's clearly trying to hold back that transition from laughter to tears. "So... you, April Ludgate, are not a terrible mother for this one thing. You're doing an amazing job!"

"Well, he was really upset with me and called me-"

"He's overreacting, April. He's only five!" Leslie claims, much louder than before, but April isn't buying it. "Look, you did the right thing. Tomorrow... or today, I guess, God, he's just going to tell you he loves you in the morning and then you'll play video games and eat candy all day."

"Yeah, I thought about that," April says, sniffing quietly and decidedly _not_ rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Andy played with him, like, all day when he picked him up."

"And?"

"And he was super tired, and when I got home he hugged me and we ate dinner," April says quietly like she's admitting to fibbing.

"I don't think playing with Robbie and Sam _and_ Andy could let him be mad at you for too long," Leslie tells her. "He probably forgot the moment he was in school playing with his friends."

"You're probably right," April admits, sighing. "Thanks, Leslie."

"No problem, April," Leslie beams back at her. "If you ever need anything-"

"I'll avoid you and have a seance to contact my great-grandmother, gotcha," April says. Leslie gives her that same old half-smile and shake of her head. "All right, I'll call you or _whatever_..."

"Yay!" Leslie shouts. "Oops, I think that woke up Ben. Gotta go, April! You're great, a great mom, and I lo-"

April hangs up without letting Leslie finish. Taking a deep breath, she sits herself up and walks back to her bedroom, slinking between the sheets next to Andy. He groans, turning around and wrapping his arms around April, pulling her into his chest.

 _You're a great mom_ repeats in her head, in Leslie's voice, urging her back to sleep and towards a little relief.


	194. Kindred Spirits - Valentine's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to let those of you still reading (hi!!!!) that I hate not writing a whole lot. Probably more than you hate not reading what I write, and hoo boy is that presumptuous of me. Anyways, this is my annual, week-late Valentine's fic. 
> 
> Even if April hates it, you know Andy's just gotta try. 
> 
> This is from the single parents AU thing that I go to every once and a while, all thanks to [lunabelles](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lunabelle/works) and her lovely support. Seriously, if you like this universe at all you owe her.

A high-pitched chirping from April's phone wakes her at first, but then a needy arm wraps itself around her waist and after an annoyed, distracted tap of her fingers, the alarm is forgotten altogether. She drifts back to sleep, only waking up half an hour later because Jack speeds out of the driveway in a hurry to forget the week in some sort of haze or other that Andy doesn't need to know about. Gingerly disentangling herself from him in bed, April stretches out in the sunlight, bathing in the warmth the window next to his bed provides. A small part of her hopes she'll turn around to see Andy staring, but a loud  _snort_ and then the resumed snoring only brings a laugh out of her. 

Down in the kitchen, she opens the fridge and stares inside. Eventually she would have to call Sam, more out of her own personal obligation to make sure that her oh-so-extroverted daughter wasn't partaking in her always  _wild_ night of sitting at home, laptop at hand and earphones ready.

For now, she was going to enjoy a glass of orange juice in a kid-free house and just ever so gently reach for that damnably high cupboard and just--

_Thud._

A thick-bottomed glass falls down onto the next platform in the bizarre, stepladder-like shelving and April bounces forward to grab the glass before it can crash to the floor. She squints when all of the glass clangs together loudly, and slowly closes the cupboard door with four glasses in her arms. Setting them down gently, she goes to get that orange juice when a loud thudding rolls down the staircase she'd just come from.

"Is everything okay?" a hazy, worried voice booms out.

"It's fine, I just dropped, like, twenty glasses everywhere," April deadpans, pouring juice and taking a huge swig while Andy yawned and made his way into the kitchen. 

"Oh, cool," he said, craning his neck. When he stretches, his shoulders show red lines deep in his skin. April smiles into her drink, more than a little proud of herself on that one. "Could I, uh, maybe get one of those?"

"Sure? You want vodka too?"

"You're doing screwdrivers at...?"

"Noon," she laughs. "No, but we should," she finishes with a little bit of a pout to her voice. 

Andy only grins at her before taking his glass. "Ugh, that'd be awesome but I'm sure I'd regret it later," he complains after a drink.

"Nuh-uh," April protests.

"Uh huh, totally would," he says back with a silly, toothy grin.

"Fine."

"Jerk," Andy says, taking a sip with a giggle bubbling the juice around his lips.

"Loser," April mutters before taking the glass from his hand and leaning up to kiss him, foul orange-tinted morning breath and all.

It takes them a bit longer than polite to break apart, but thankfully there is no Jack or Sam to question where Andy's hands are -- in fact, they'd first question where half of their clothes are -- or they perhaps would scream and tell April to stop making that sound when they kiss. Instead they break apart with hungry eyes, but then something dawns across Andy's face.

"Oh my God!" he shouts before spinning around and sprinting up the stairs. "Gimme a second!"

"Dude you've got co--"

"No! Something else!" he yells from the bedroom, followed by the bang of what was clearly his head on something and then the opening of the closet. When Andy runs back down, he's got a darkly red face and both of his hands behind his back. "Close your eyes!"

"Okay..." April does and waits.

"Hands out," he says, and April puts her wrists together as if there's some handcuffs that are about to appear. "Oh come on, you know what this is."

When she flips her palms up, something heavy drops into them. April opens her eyes and sees a box of cheap chocolates and a small bundle of purplish flowers. Her gut reaction is to sneer, remembering the date, but Andy's face is so bright and proud she works up a really terrible facsimile. Which, of course, he notices. His face falls from that bright sheen to a sudden realization. 

"Awesome," April says noncommittally. "This is--"

"Dumb," Andy mutters. 

"No, it's just that--"

"I forgot you said not to get anything."

"Well, yeah, but I just don't really... um, like this holiday?" April says cautiously. "It's just weird."

"Oh," Andy nods. 

"I mean, if you like me then why do you have to say it on a holiday?" April asks him seriously. "Besides, it's a little too mushy for me..."

"Right," Andy says, sullen. "Um, you can keep those though. I mean, obviously. It's a gift! But, yeah, they're yours. If you don't want them I can find the receipt somewhere..."

"Dude, it's okay," April clarifies, trying to ease him through this. Realizing she's still holding her hands out awkwardly, April sets the chocolates down but keeps the cupped petals in one of her open palms. "Why are you being so weird about this?"

"I dunno, I just... um, do we have something here? I mean, yeah, but more than, uh; um, is it something?" he stutters.

"Yes, it's something," April chuckles. "Is that cool with you?"

"Yes," Andy says, and it's so quiet and relieved that April grins to herself. Looking down at her little flower, April watches the purple and red petals cutting between each other around a curled basin with interest. She remembers pointing these out a week before, commenting on how they bloom in winter --  _Hellebores_ \-- and how Andy thought she was brilliant. 

"So...?" she prods a little, still curious if not a bit worried.

"Oh, um... yeah, well. Okay, so..." he starts and stops once more, sighing. "This is awkward. I don't usually like talking about exes with, well, girlfriends."

"Nice, I'm your girlfriend," April brags. She pumps her first, mimicking Andy, before realization hits her. "Oh, so it's...?"

"So, I kinda... y'know Jack had to come from somewhere..."

"Hell, just like Samantha did," April tells him knowingly. "Trust me, I know demon-spawn when I see them."

"Thanks," Andy grins.

"No problem," April says with a chuckle.

"But really, I dunno... ever since his mom, y'know, kinda..."

"Oh you don't have to--"

"Ever since she kinda left us, I don't like... flings are hard," Andy looks down and sighs. "I mean, we're not a fling right? We're--"

"Yes, Andy. I'll go to prom with the star quarterback," April sets her free hand against her forehead, feigning a swooning spell. "Heavens, the  _star_ \--"

"Hey, I wasn't a pansy quarterback," Andy defends himself.

"Good, I only date defense," April shrugs and shares a small smile before she shakes her head. "So you just wanted to make sure that we're still cool?"

"Yeah..." Andy groans.

"Dude, have you been paying attention these last few months?" April gives a dark, muffled sort of laughter, unable to help herself.

"Well, it wasn't official," Andy shrugs.

High alert rings in her head, and April stops in her tracks of enjoying herself. "You're right, it isn't. I mean, from my end I was pretty damn satisfied with you but if you're--"

"Oh crap! No way!" Andy springs into a defensive position, his eyes wide and already broad shoulders widened out further like April would tackle him and do anything more than bounce right off in the opposite direction. "Oh my God, I didn't mean that April... I swear, swear to, like, Dave Grohl that I haven't--"

"Okay, well if you're swearing on people that I've never heard of it's probably okay," she says, only half-joking before but covering all of her bases just in case.

"Wait a minute... are you telling me--?"

"Oh wait, he's the guy in Foo Fighters, right?" April says, because  _duh_ how could she forget him? 

Instead of being met with a relaxed look of satisfaction, Andy just shakes his head in disappointment. "It's a good thing you're so hot, Ludgate. And smart, and awesome," he says before squinting. "Okay, you're pretty great, but you've still got a few things you need to learn."

"Yeah, like how someone could bail out on you and your pretty cool kid," April grins.

"Just pretty cool?" Andy says, pulling joke offense straight to his wide eyes. Even so, he walks forward and stares April down. She bites her lip, waiting for Andy to react exactly how she knows he will and wants him to react. 

He lets out a sharp breath, and before anyone can ask another question -- before April can even think about being remotely upset about Valentine's Day or Andy can tell her more about how  _anybody_ could leave him -- they're making their way to the nearest sturdy, flat, vertical surface available.


	195. Food Fights, Coffee, and Ice Cream Trebuchets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SWEAR I WILL HOLD TO THIS.
> 
> Anyways, I wanna try and write once a day. That might not mean a fic every day, but we'll see! Even just little, cutesie things like this.
> 
> Enjoy!

It was all supposed to be a natural, boring, plain,  _ugh_ kind of day. There wasn't supposed to be any excitement, and April was going to enjoy the calm for once, but in reality there's always a few speed bumps when Andy's involved. He goads her into such childish things she's already ninety-nine percent of the way towards doing, though each time a little less openly hostile, and their current activity de jure was, of course, tossing french fries at people walking past the shoeshine stand.

By the time Leslie walks by, there's already been three or four complaints. Some about the fries, one or two about the obscene sexual conduct happening in City Hall, but all in all it's a nice day.

It's  _nice_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy takes his time balancing the coffee cups in his arms. Despite the carriers, he's still handling seven cups of coffee. 

 _Newsflash_ _Pawnee_ , he thinks as he kicks one of the doors to Parks open,  _Dwyer's too badass to drop a little--_

And then Andy manages to trip over his own foot, skip past scorching April with the coffee ( _Good save, dude_ he thought later) and ended up splashing the whole mess somewhere between Donna, Jerry, and the floor.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Hey," Andy calls out, plopping down onto one of the high chairs at his Awesome Shoeshinery. 

"What'd you get?" April groans, her stomachache from before clearly not settled. 

"Well, when I've got tummy problems I always eat a bowl of chocolate ice cream so--"

"Ugh," April moans and turns into a curled ball in her chair.

"So I got you a small bowl, and we're going to take these spoons," Andy stops and digs a spoon out of the little plastic bag, brandishing it for April, "and then we're gonna fling all of it at everyone that walks by."

April's sour mood turns into a small smile, then later melts into a giggly fit infrequently interrupted by a rough gurgle from her gut. But the laughter seems like great medicine, and Andy can only pat himself on the back. That is, until they're halfway through the bowl and, having pelted Jamm three times already, were expecting to get a lot more mileage out of this little lunch-turned-hooky-turned-bullshit. 

April cocked the spoon back, the fourth one they'd gone through (Andy made sure to have replacements from the Dairy Queen in the bag, too,  _duh_ ) and preemptively shot a small ball of brown soft-serve towards a window. 

"Oh, w--"

But before Andy could finish, April had already loosed her volley. Just as she realizes what she's done, her eyes grow wide and she turns to stare at Andy.

They both burst into laughter.

Ron, however, only heaves a great sigh and wipes the chocolate from his cheek.


	196. What the hell was that sound?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did keep to my writing once a day! However, I got lazy and didn't upload to any archives... whoops. So, yeah, have a small blast of small ficlets written for a sentence starter ask game on tumblr!
> 
> Enjoy :)

"Hm?" Andy turns his head with a clumsy twist, the sleep in his eyes apparent when April glances at him.

"I swear I heard something upstairs," she says. "Dude, this house really _is_ haunted!"

The new house could be, but Andy didn't really care so much about that. Seeing April burst into a grin was fantastic though and, although previously lethargic, she grabs his hand to drag him off of the couch towards the noise.

Sadly, when they went upstairs there wasn't a spooky poltergeist playing with curtains or smashing closet doors closed. Instead, there was a strange, wooden rocking horse careening backward and then thumping its nose into the corner of a wall.

April heaved a sigh. "That's lame," she groans and just before she turns the horse falls to a complete, dead stop.

Andy's grin drops, met with wide eyes and a wider smile by April.


	197. Don't. Move.

April glared at Andy, sitting in his lap and refusing to let him get up to do whatever lame thing was interrupting her near-nap. His guitar sat awkwardly on _her_ lap and his while he played, but for some reason – _totally not the human furnace of joy she was buried into_ – it was comfortable.

"But, I mean… I figured you were gonna take a nap," Andy said with an unsure chuckle. "So… I–"

"You're about to screw it up. God," she rolled her eyes, her smirk unmistakeable but _definitely_ not there, and nestled back into him as best she could. "I said keep playing."

She smiled when Andy strummed the first chord, and kept that comfortable smile when his voice broke into a little, wonderful croon about how rad she was and how they were the "champions of marriage." April's eyes dropped low, the delightful weight of his words guiding her into a relaxing sleep with her arms still around Andy.


	198. Babe, I love you but...

"Babe, I love you, but I think we need to buy you some, um, of your own…" Andy paused and sighed. "I mean, your own, uh, pajamas?"

"Why?" she asked incredulously, lounging on the couch in his unwashed shirt and not much else, while Andy stood around in unwashed boxers and, of course, nothing else.

"I mean, Ben wants us to be adults–"

"Eww, shut up with the Ben talk," April bemoaned and shook her head. "Why don't we just, y'know, actually _wash_ these ones…?"

"That sounds super hard."

"I bet Ben knows how to do laundry," April said, pretending and knowing full well how to turn a dial. "Besides, he's lame enough to _want_ to do it. Probably."

"You know I think you're hot when you wear old, junky flannel. Especially when it's super dirty, and gross, and old," Andy gave her a grin all the while, noticing her shy smile at the strange compliment. April stood up, watching his eyes wander. "But, you'd probably be hot in old, junky, _clean_ flannel."

"God, you're so romantic," she said slowly in her most serious voice, settling her arms around Andy's neck when he goes in for a kiss.


	199. Honey, you know how much Jack loves...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, almost 200! Yikes. This is the last of the tiny ficlets, and tomorrow will be another, longer fic :)

“Honey, you know how much Jack loves when you go to his games!” Andy tries again, bumping his shoulder into the freezer door while April pulls leftovers from the fridge, desperately trying to get April to skip out on some dreadfully dull work meeting. “You can, like, use it as an excuse to get out.”

“Wow, awesome pitch, dude,” April scoffs but she sighs anyways. 

“C’mon babe, it’s his last game before he graduates…” Andy whines. “Everyone’s going! Robbie said she might fight the other quarterback, and her girlfriend’s coming too! Sam said she might even–”

“I know, I know! I just… it’s all, y’know,” April put the plastic tub of rice down on the counter behind them, taking her time turning back around to face him. “He’s the first one, y’know?”

Andy stares blankly and then his features soften, his mouth turning into a knowing grin. “Aww, babe! You’re sad it’s his last game!”

“Am not!” April fights back childishly, but Andy’s smile doesn’t abate. After a long moment, she looks down at the floor. “Fine, I’m super bummed out and I’m trying to avoid it in an extremely healthy way because as long as I don’t know he’s graduating high school then I don’t have to think about it!”

“That sounds like a totally, like, one-hundred percent…” Andy trails off, watching April’s face take a decidedly unimpressed, annoyed turn, “ _terrible_ idea, honey. How about this–” Andy takes one of her hands in both of his and gives her the widest, dumbest grin possible. “You go, we ditch the game at half-time. We’ll come back for the end, don’t worry! We sneak into the locker rooms–”

“Make out at concessions first,” April buts in.

“Yes! You’re so smart,” Andy says. “Go to the locker rooms, we maybe make out there. Go to a classroom, make out _there_ –”

“Or we can do it there,” April offers with a nod.

“Babe, you are just. So. Smart!” he punctuates the last word with a deep kiss, breaking off to walk away. “I swear if you’re not at the game tonight–”

“A Snakehole never leaves her man waiting,” April says with a wink, and Andy rushes off with a growl-turned-holler, impatient for the night.


	200. Kindred Spirits - Dinner Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly have no idea how I managed to cobble together 200 (technically 199, or even so 198, but let's not talk about that) fics together, but here we are. It's been crazy, and I hope to keep writing fics about these two as long as people continue to want them!
> 
> Or whatever.
> 
> Either way, this is more in the Single Parents AU that lunabelles is so fond of! I blame her for any, if not all, of this :D
> 
> Requested anonymously.

"Woah, I didn't know you knew how to cook!" Andy all but shouts in Jack's ear, caught by surprise with the so elegantly put-together pot of water and store-bought pasta.

"What... it's spaghetti, dad," Jack says slowly.

"Yeah, and?"

"And, what did you think we were gonna do?"

"Oh, I figured we'd, um... yeah, that's a good point," Andy admits.

"You should cook for your own date..."

"Well, it's very important and she wanted to come over here and you're the best kid in the world so you offered to-"

"To cook for everyone with my _masterful_ chef skills," Jack flourishes with one hand, the other busy with a very boutique spice. Namely, salt. "I'm sure you need my help, anyways..."

"Where'd you learn that?" Andy asks, changing the subject abruptly.

"You gotta take a year of home-ec in middle school, and I liked the cooking stuff so that's been some of my electives..." Jack trails off, shrugging his shoulders at the tail end. "I dunno, it's fun. This is all we had, so I made spaghetti."

"Dude, that's so cool!" Andy lifts his hand for a high-five and Jack switches spoon hands to land it with a satisfying _clap_. "Chicks love a guy who cooks..."

"Jesus," Jack mutters under his breath as Andy walks off to ready the dining room table.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Meanwhile, only a few minutes' drive away, April groans at yet _another_ red light. Sam, on the other hand, couldn't seem to care less about her surroundings. To her, the headphones in her ears and the screen of her phone were the entire universe at that moment.

"Y'know," April starts, looking over at Sam and expecting her to look back. April only sighs.

Sam reacts as if she were a startled sloth, taking a few seconds to finish whatever held her attention then to turn and look at April. She takes one headphone out, pointedly, and asks, "What's up?"

"I know you said you'd rather just order takeout and sleep," April takes the turn onto Andy's street and bathes in the lack of traffic lights, "but thank you for coming."

"Well, Andy isn't lame so... it's fine, I guess," Sam shrugs and looks back at her phone.

"Yeah, like I said. Thanks," April repeats it, as seriously as she can without getting ribbed for it by her daughter.

They pull into the driveway and only the full stop of the car gets Sam to step out.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy answers the door, Sam practically barrelling past him. Despite his best efforts, she won't even give him a high-five. April laughs when she sees him lower his hand in disappointment.

"Hey," she declares her entrance with the eloquence that this relatively benign dinner deserved.

"Oh my God, I'm so glad you came!"

"Always do," April says and leaves him with a kiss on the cheek, a bit of muffled laughter there, before heading off to find where Sam was trying to burrow herself away into.

It takes Andy a moment to get her joke, and then he grins wide on his way to the dining room.

After a few minutes, Jack comes out with the pot of spaghetti in his hands and Andy behind with the sauce.

"Jack is, like, a crazy good cook. Which I just found out today," Andy nod, "but if Jack is into it then he's awesome at it."

Jack only sighs and sits at his seat across from Sam. April and Andy sit at opposite ends of the small table and it takes them a second to realize that their view was blocked by the comically over-large pot Jack had chosen for the pasta.

"Well, maybe he needs to work on some stuff still..." Andy says, peeking over the pot naturally. April has to look up to see him.

"Or maybe you've just got stupid, tiny chairs," Sam offers suddenly.

April stops for a second, because although Andy's awesome he hasn't dealt with Sam often. He could reveal himself to be a total ass in this one moment, or...

He could laugh and smile, just like then.

"Well, at least we've got-"

Andy looks at Jack, and their eyes bug out wildly.

"The bread!" they shout in unison, Jack pushing his chair out a little too fast and bumping the table with his gangly knees. The sauce next to him jiggles at the end of the table nearest April, who tries to grab it from slipping off.

She manages just in time, but Sam stares at the whole scene while Andy manages to nearly trip over the chair he was just sitting in a second earlier.

"So..." April whispers to Sam. "This is nice."

"Sure."

It takes them a few more moments, and April hears them bicker at each other during, before Andy emerges with his hands folded and his mouth a tight line.

"Okay, I hope you guys like your garlic bread crispy."

"Are we talking carbonized crispy?" Sam asks reflexively.

"I... it is all fine, this is _fine_ ," Andy coughs and steps out of the way of Jack, who comes bearing a tray of what looks like black lumps of coal. "It's, um..."

"Perfect," Sam mutters.

Jack looks down at his ruined bread before setting it down with an unceremonious _thud_ on the nearest island table. It wobbles there, and no one so much as gestures to take a piece.

After a few minutes of awkward eating, Sam stealing glances at what she was clearly most excited for, Andy finally clears his throat and sets his fork down.

"So, I, uh... we, I mean. We wanted to do this, this date thing here because we wanted to tell you guys something really cool and-"

"Dad," Jack interrupts.

"Man, can I just give one cool speech-?"

"Yeah, but you've got, um," Jack gestures at his own lip and then opens his palm, making a wiping motion all around his chin. "Yeah, something your, uh... face."

"Your whole face," April tells him, smirking.

Andy seems unfazed, continuing his so-called speech. "Well, I'll get it later because the napkins are still in the kitchen and this is important."

"Very important," April deadpans to Sam, who only shakes her head.

"April - y'know, your mom," he nods at Sam, who lifts an eyebrow in amused annoyance. "So, yeah, we are... we. I am dating your mom, full stop."

"And as you know by now Jack, considering I come over her practically every weekend, am dating your dad-"

"I bought noise-cancelling headphones months ago," Jack says. "I know."

Andy's face turns an adorable hue of red and April has to bite her smirk back _hard_ (mostly because of Sam's upturned nose and half-wretched grimace) before he clears his throat again.

"So, um, yeah! Super cool, you're super cool," he says, pointing at Sam. "Your mom's super cool, and we're just cool together... right?"

"Totally," April nods, taking her cue. "That's what this amazingly weird dinner is all about. Talking about how awesome we are."

"And that we wanted to make sure you're cool with this," Andy says, glancing back and forth between Jack and Sam.

"Yep," April agrees.

Jack shrugs before saying, "I mean, at least you wait until I'm out of the house."

"I wish they'd wait until I was out of the country," Sam whines.

"Okay, that's enough of that," Andy says, standing up with that same red blush. "I'm gonna go... uh, dish. Dishes. You wanna dish?" he offers, pointing at April. "We should dishes."

"What are we doing?" April asks, goading him on.

"We're doing the dishes!" he says louder, picking his and Jack's plate up in a hurry.

"So, that was a success...?" Andy asks more than tells her, waiting for April to hand him another plate to toss into the dishwasher.

Dishes were too hard to do by hand, was Andy's stance.

"I mean, Jack almost made Sam throw up," April says, weighing her options here, "so that's pretty funny. Then again, your son definitely knows how much we do it in here."

"Which is why he's never here on the weekends," Andy says like she's about to ruin a good thing. Which, honestly, she might have been but it was fun pushing his buttons.

Hell, that's what got her here in the first place.

"Which is pretty cool..." she mutters, pretending like just calling him when she's driving him from work and getting an ear to complain to isn't just as rad. Or a shoulder to lean into during a cold night, wrapped in blankets.

"So..." Andy turns her around, hands on April's waist. The touch alone is soothing. "Success?"

April tucks her wet hands behind his neck and keeps them nestled against his soft curls. "Yeah, perfect mix of weird and now they know it's official."

"Score," Andy whispers before leaning in for a kiss.


	201. Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested anonymously as "Collarbone kiss" from a set of kiss-themed prompts!
> 
> Enjoy :)

If ever there were a way to describe this moment, April couldn’t think of it and she didn’t dare try. Even in this dingy, worthless government building it was as if they were the only people there. She was expecting a Skype call, a conversation for a while, and then her lunch break would be over and a silly thing like work would come back up and annoy her to the very end of her sanity.

Instead, Andy was standing right before her eyes. His smile right there, his eyes taking her in, and she could _not_ stop smiling.

Maybe that’s why she felt like they were the only people there. Smiling around most people felt like a waste of energy.

April didn’t think about that with him though, and frankly she didn’t think about much. All she could do was stare up at him, crush him into a hug as best she could and, before long, mark him with kisses. 

Andy laughs, and she swears he says something, but all that matters is meeting him for another kiss. It doesn’t take long before they’ve gone well past decency, and April is only partially along the crest of his collar – really, only at his chest which is basically eye-level with her – when they’re so _rudely_ interrupted.

There isn’t even time to register who it is for April to groan against his chest, earn a promise of more later, and deciding that running out of City Hall hours before her day ends is the best way to celebrate his arrival.


	202. They're Called Inuit Kisses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This was requested anonymously as "Nose kisses."
> 
> Yes, that brand of dumb. Enjoy!

It may have been the silliest thing he’s ever suggested. In front of a fire, while it was _snowing_ outside. What a cliché .

“Andy, no, this is dumb,” April whines, not giving an ounce of a fight with his arm thrown around her like this.

“It’ll be like the penguins,” he complains, and April rolls her eyes ( _Eskimos, you dork_ ) but doesn’t say anything. “I swear it’ll be cute!”

“Andy–”

She means to complain more, but between the warmth of the fire, Andy’s body, and in her chest, it’s _really_ difficult to be annoyed with Andy. It’s especially hard considering they’re alone, in Ron’s former cabin, and she’s punch drunk with him and a little drunk otherwise.

So, really, it’s hard to imagine complaining when Andy leans in, a chuckle at his lips, and brushes his nose gently past hers.

Her face glows red hot, and Andy grins with that haphazard, drunk candor.

“You’re s’posed to do it like _this_ ,” she says, and pointedly taps the end of her nose against the end of his.

April really should have been annoyed instead, because for all the joy in the world she assumes lives in Andy, she couldn’t imagine anyone more thrilled than him at that tiny gesture. It was in his eyes, and didn’t stop for anything let alone the rosy, tipsy cheeks he bore, or for the smile that, truth be told she did sigh heavily but internally at the thought, wooed her.


	203. Distance Be Damned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final of the "kisses" prompts, and it's another nose kiss! This is what I like to call, "Real Life is Great for Giving Me Ideas."
> 
> Enjoy!

April was standing firm on this subject.

“C’mon, babe, you’ve been in D.C. for, like, two weeks now!” Andy complains from across the country, a little warbled because of bad Pawnee internet connections. “I really… y’know, I really miss you.”

So, for as much as April considered herself standing firm on the subject it becomes clearer to her that she can’t win this argument. As much of an argument it was, considering what he was asking. 

“Andy, seriously?” she asks, trying to figure out how this is helping anyone. She’s been lying in bed all day, covers over her head, ignoring every phone call like it was the plague.

In fact, she’s pretty sure that if she picks up her phone and answers she’ll suffocate on every possible word that could come out of her mouth.

“Seriously!” he says back, a hopeful gleam in his eyes. “April, it’ll be fun!”

“But what if it messes up my screen?”

“Babe, where are you right now?” Andy asks suddenly, looking over her as best he can. All he can really see is the mattress of her bed.

“In bed… ignoring the world,” April mutters.

“Okay, one sec!” Andy shouts and the camera starts shaking and everything is blurry for a few moments before a loud _squeak_ that’s all too familiar comes from her phone. A moment later, the screen is dark except for Andy’s face. “Okay, now _I’m_ under the covers too.”

“I’m not…” she tries, but it’s no use. “Okay, fine.”

“And it’s been, like, a million years since I got to even hug you, April!”

She sighs, because it’s not stupid to her. In fact, she had just been obstinate because it sounded silly for a second and April’s brain was trying to retain its little ounce of misanthropy it had left before Andy had called her. Now, they’re in their (separate, mind you) beds, a half-country apart. It was miserable, and it was driving April _mad_ with annoyance that she couldn’t wake up to Andy right now. But, here, in this makeshift connection, it felt like a little balm for this insane town.

“Okay,” she finally acquiesces.

And so she leans forward and kisses the screen of her phone. 

Andy returns it, and April finds herself running her phone to her lips, and her neck, and trying to recall what every sensation felt like in vivid detail. Finally, she brought the phone to the tip of her nose where Andy left an exaggerated pop of lips.

It’s so stupid is all she can think, but in that moment when she looks back into the phone and sees Andy’s truly passionate care in his eyes, it’s as if he’s right there under the covers with her. Waiting. He’s there, waiting for her. A soft bit of comfort is right there, and it’s Andy. It’s always been Andy.

April can’t help herself, indulging in their “under-the-covers” phone calls constantly after that.


	204. Surely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested aeons ago, and I regret never getting to this prompt. Hopefully the anon out there is still around so they can accept my apology.
> 
> I have been terrible about writing every day. To absolve my sins, here is an angsty AU drabble to make you hate me even more.
> 
> Enjoy! (?)

Some days, in a big city with little dreams, April wonders: would it be different?

Would her secretarial position at some _blah blah blah_ boring marketing company be something else? If she wasn’t in Indianapolis, would life be different _at all_? Sure, she enjoys her life in her minuscule apartment with a roommate she hates. It’s great, she says to her parents without the faintest trace of assurance.

If she hadn’t actually come here, then she wouldn’t be able to go out to that sushi place down the street. It’s just on the corner between her favorite coffee stop and her apartment building. 

Surely, her life is going the plaintive, dull normal.

It’s convenient, isn’t it?

It’s all plain here, but with no use for her savings stockpiling April isn’t sure what else there is in life to enjoy at all. She surely couldn’t go back to Pawnee, talk to the people who have no doubt moved on by now. That was a time past, surely.

Surely, she couldn’t finish that text that’s been a draft for going on a year and a half.

Surely, he wouldn’t want to speak to her.

April takes the globe she bought at an antique store out of the blue and spins it. Planting her finger on the random location, stopping the globe’s revolutions, she looks up the cheapest flights and hotels in Iceland afterwards. This life... _life_ , she chuckles to herself.

This life is easier. Surely, it must be.


	205. It Seems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by meet-me-onthe-equinox on tumblr as "Picking up the pieces."
> 
> This is related to my Andy death headcanon, so be very aware of that! Enjoy?

June 17th is a date that April would remember vividly, constantly.

People ask her how she’s going to deal, how to move on -- they advise her as often as they think they know better. As if they know her better. April doesn’t deal in these niceties, even if Andy is involved in this way. 

She visits him. Sometimes, it seems. When the night-chill punches through her bones, April just wraps another blanket around herself and lies down on the ice-cold grass. It crunches underneath her lithe weight, worsening with a dreadful appetite that deteriorates every day. 

Often, it seems, she visits him. 

Daily, it seems.

Each day, and every night, it seems that something changes. Something’s changed, and the tone changes. She knows better, and knows what he would have wanted... and, somewhere, it seems, she changes. 

She tells him stories, the most boring ones imaginable about how her day went at home, and she can’t force herself to strain her tired muscles into a lackluster smile. Still, it helps. 

He would want her to continue to be happy, and April does the best she can. With inspiration, she marks that day -- the seventeenth, or rather the day a hellish maw opened up and swallowed her whole -- and decides on something different. She invites Leslie, Ron, even _Ann_ with a little hesitation, and tries to get Tom to come. He finally acquiesces.

Robbie and Sam arrive first, apparently headlong in catching up. The sight warms April’s heart, and the entrance of Jack, followed ever so closely by Eddie and Victoria, seals the deal. Vicky’s small family, the only one of them who seemed so headstrong in this ideal, awkwardly enters. 

April meets her grandchild for the first time, wondering how to entice her to dark magic and pranks.

The 17th, this first one, is a day April will remember vividly, constantly. This day, so it seems to the unsure guests, will be a day to celebrate Andy’s life. A mixture of Halloween tricks and decorations, with a hearty meal April asked Leslie and Ann to help with that you wouldn’t get without another month’s wait, all together with plenty of family -- both biological and earned -- sows the seed for this new holiday. This personal holiday, only theirs.

Yearly, it seems, they will celebrate, not mourn.


	206. Oh So Little

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by gamblingdementor (parksandfluff) over on tumblr! Thank you for the request so much :)
> 
> I can only hope that this mess of... something is okay? Whatever, it's here. Enjoy!

In so many ways, Andy knew so little.

Some days, he’d wonder how he ever got so lucky. Whether it was the simple reality that they could spend _all day_ in bed on the weekends, and often on the weekdays because just screw working on Mondays, or otherwise, Andy could scarcely believe it.

Here he was, awesome and dumb, and she looked at him like every silly thing that fell out of his mouth was another adventure for them to enjoy.

Together.

What if that ever came to change, though? This question occasionally attacked at Andy, but he never gave it much thought. Sometimes it was stronger than him, or rather his ignorance of it, but every time... every _single_ time, she was there. Even if the problem was as silly as being unable to pay a bill on time, something years ago that would have been funny, she saw through what he was struggling with there.

It wasn’t just that she cared about him and listened, it’s that she listened to the real him. Likewise, he had hoped of -- ever-long dreamed of -- preparing himself to be everything for her. In all ways, he wanted to know the real April like he always had. For the little he knew, he wanted to absorb every ounce of every inch; of every decibel of every word; of every moment of every day they spent together. For the little he knew, Andy wanted to know all of her.

He could only hope that she was willing to put up with all of him.


	207. Lose Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No idea what this is, other than an answer to the request of "Unbreakable."
> 
> Enjoy!

Just the prospect of losing their marriage turns her blood cold.

“Andy, seriously it’s important to you, and--”

“What? No! It’s not, babe,” he says, like he’s telling the truth or something. Despite that deathly chill, she ignores what he’s saying.

At some point she’ll bother to recognize these states. Right now, she’s of one mind.

“Well, you said you want kids. Right now, I don’t and--”

“So right now I don’t either,” he blurts out. She knows he’s lying, trying to placate her.

“Yes you do,” she bites back.

“No.”

“Andy!”

“Okay, maybe I do but... but I don’t wanna--”

“Lose me? Okay, whatever.”

“April, I--”

She turns back to looks at him. “Andy?” she starts, unsure what the last few words out of her mouth were. Why, of all things, did she dismiss any of that. “Andy, seriously.”

“What?” he doesn’t want to meet her eyes right now.

“It’s just--”

“Listen babe, I understand. I mean, yeah... I get it. You don’t wanna, y’know,” Andy stumbles over his words and eventually sighs. “I love you so much, and if you ever wanna talk about it I’m all ears.”

“Andy...”

“So I’m gonna just shut up for the rest of time and let my wife make this decision herself,” he grins.

“That’s probably a good call,” she mumbles.

“And I mean it... it’s always you, y’know? Always you,” he repeats, knowingly.

The warmth returns, and with it so many questions. So, so many questions with terrifying answers.


	208. Everything for You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Instead of going down the obvious route, I wanted something a bit silly. I know, I know... either way, thank you to lunabelle for requesting this and being overall the best! :D
> 
> Enjoy.

“Ugh, this is dumb.”

“What?” Andy asks, his head perking up from staring at the fret board of his guitar. “Oh honey, Ben’s just in his room you don’t have to be mad–”

“The stupid internet’s down again,” April says through clenched teeth, face a menacing scowl. She slaps her laptop’s keyboard and growls up at the ceiling, “What do we even pay for?”

“We pay for internet?” Andy asks.

April stares at him, eyes wide in confusion and perhaps a hint of annoyance. “Andy…” she starts, “you know I don’t have any data left.”

“Oh yeah, like on your phone…?”

“Like on my phone,” she reiterates. “And it’s only 3G so it’s totally crap anyways–”

“Yes, but I also know that I’m not sure what that is,” he mumbles, strumming a chord and chuckling to himself.

“How am I supposed to annoy my sister if I can’t–”

“Maybe we could do it old school,” Andy suggests.

“I’m not in the mood right now, too annoyed at the internet,” April scoffs, and Andy only guffaws in response. “What?”

“Babe, you are so into me!”

“I said I wasn’t…” she stops, and Andy’s smile widens. April shakes her head, a single chuckle escaping mostly unwanted. “Right. What’s your plan?”

“Didn’t you say Natalie got a new car? Well, I was thinking–”

“Get some rotten eggs, old cream cheese, and your super sweaty, gross socks and put them in her trunk?”

Andy was going to say they should put a fish in the trunk. _That_ was a classic. Yet, somehow, April was just this perfect, mean genius.

“Babe, I say this all the time but I have never been more into you in my entire life,” Andy says, never taking his eyes off of April’s.

“First we mess with Natalie.”

“See where we end up after that?” Andy suggests.

“Best idea ever,” April nods, grinning like a maniac.

Neither of them notices that the internet’s back up. Instead, they’re too busy collecting the noisome materials required for effectively ruining Natalie’s new car smell.


	209. Innocence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested by [meet-me-onthe-equinox on tumblr](http://meet-me-onthe-equinox.tumblr.com), and then combined with an older request from [lunabelle](http://lunabelles.tumblr.com) on AO3! Thank you to the both of you, and for anyone reading this right now. You're all wonderful :)
> 
> Enjoy!

Andy wasn't very good at this whole conceptualizing thing, it was just hard all right? However, in a hundred-hundred lives he didn't expect to see this before him:

April Ludgate, the one with the dorky smile and the sour look at all hours otherwise, was trying to comfort little Jack on his way to his first day to school. And, really, he seemed to be doing fine.

It was _April_ that needed it.

When she returned, a worried flatline deadpan across her face, Andy only grinned at her. Jack continued on his merry way, bouncing a little and remembering to keep his little fake blood capsules for in case someone was being a real jerk - as per Andy - or his teacher really sucked, likewise April.

No, he would do fine. Jack would be okay, just another step in his life that was this culmination of a thousand lives Andy had never known and right now, despite the fact that he just didn't get that really, he knew that in that very moment everything felt _perfect_. Not okay, not great... but perfection.

April didn't seem to think differently when they stopped to grab a bite to eat, depart for a moment in the gross old alley next to the fast food place, and didn't let up until it was time to pick Jack up... several hours later.


	210. Colors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I wrote this in response to the prompt "Heart Song" on tumblr. Very vague, that one. I thought about some music, and some other things, but I eventually landed on this. For once, here, I'm going to write something personally motivated. Don't shoot me, thanks.
> 
> Enjoy?

For some of the people that do fall in love, it is a single, vibrant shade of natural warmth. It comes or it goes, but the expression is the same. Each motion is filtered clearly and calmly. They see love as part three, or four or five, of a grand plan and scheme their life is bound to forever. Clean, simple, and with finite error in detail... however, this is _their_ life.

This is not April’s life.

Instead of the monochrome dream she wishes she lived in, April collects new colorful insights with each passing thought. What used to be red of love and lust can die to gray in a matter of breaths. Her silken dream of calm blue is only for a moment before April is reeled back into a haze of disappointment. Every constant in someone else’s life is a variable, a question hanging over her head with cruel intent in hers; a rainbow of shades indecipherable. Even with him. And this, this universal truth in her life, taunts her. “What if,” it asks, “he is through with you?”

Even worse, “What if,” it asks with its curling lips of bruised purple, “you tire of _him?_ ”

The question is venomous. What if this exaltation of her “true” feelings, this overwhelming sense of closeness and ability to confide in Andy, fails? The doubt sends iron-cold spikes down her spine.

And it scares, oh God it terrifies her in the same way that any of these thoughts do -- they’re legitimate. Some days, April is barely in control of anything. She’s otherworldly angry at nothing in particular. Some days, she feels a terrible fear that comes out as introverted avoidance and the usual pranking, annoyance, and jokes that have evolved over the years.

“What if, I dunno, one day it’s just, like, gone,” she tries to explain to Andy one day, “and we, like, just... what if I can’t figure this stupid crap out--?”

“Babe, that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!”

“The part where I opened up to you or the part where I can’t tell what the hell I’m feeling half the time?”

“No, it’s the part where you’re unsure of me...”

There is a long silence afterwards. April reaches for his hand on the couch, the simple gesture in their comfortable embrace softening the mood further. He obeys. Andy squeezes, his grip strong.

“Look at me,” she pulls at his hand.

“Yeah, and?” he asks.

“Some days, I never know if I’ll want to wake up and hug you or sit in a corner for ten years. I don’t understand why I can’t just... understand how I’ll feel one day after another...” April trails off, shrugging. “Okay, this doesn’t make any sense.”

Andy shrugs as if he’s been following the whole time and April can’t help but give him the faintest of smiles. Eventually he says, “Well maybe you can explain it to me--?”

“I just said _I_ don’t even get it,” April reiterates, bristling a little at the perceived lack of attention.

Andy shakes his head in response. “No, I mean like you can explain how you feel on a day or how you think you’re gonna feel... or, like, whatever and we can make sense of it y’know?”

“We?” April whispers, a bit incredulous still.

“Duh,” Andy scoffs at her.

The days will be blue and yellow, bruised with purples and confusing whirlpools of shades and mixtures. But with Andy, would it be so bad? Perhaps, or maybe even worse, but for once April thinks trying might not be the absolute worst. Some colors, especially between them, could be so much fun.

After all, what’s life without a little bit more passionate red?


	211. Simplicity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously on tumblr!
> 
> Thank you to everyone that requested, and to everybody reading and commenting -- you're all the bee's knees and _then_ some :D
> 
> Enjoy!

April had stopped believing in fairy tale magic a long time ago, through no fault of her own of course. In fact, if middle school had gone a bit differently then who knows what sorts of things she’d be enamored in forever. She’d like to believe she was an actual witch, even then, but her letter never came and April settled on the darker stuff with a hint of black magic. More than a hint, usually.

But years, decades after this… here she was.

Decades after she though magic, real magic that didn’t need blood sacrifices or hexes – though those were certainly amusing – here she was.

Magic wasn’t only real, it was right here in front of her; around her every step.

Magic was laughing at Andy’s absurd jokes, awkward references that nobody gets and the ones that make Robbie and Jack just shake their heads; concealing Sam’s dark intent in her pranks stolen from her mother… watching the twins, born last and with every good bit of Andy in them, grow up. 

They watched the children grow up, these strange little demon children that were her own little coven. These witches would come to _her_ in _their_ times of need, times that April was never sure her own parents would have been around for if the places were changed. At times, those strange hours of confidence between their family, Andy would disagree. Sometimes they would agree, but they always felt what was right in the end. They had each others’ backs, theirs and their childrens’ too.

And what was right was all of this – the simple reality in front of her, this not-really-her-fantasy but so-damn-satisfying _magic_ that she shares with all of them. 

Was it her first choice? No. 

Would she give it up for her dreams of being a real witch? Not when she can tell her own that they _are_.


	212. Kindred Spirits - Showers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by lunabelle on tumblr... whom you can blame for any amount of anything getting done in this universe! This one is not smutty, so you can calm down now with the pitchforks...
> 
> Hang on, does anyone read this? You should let me know, because as much fun as it is writing for just her... well, it's a whole lot more fun knowing other people enjoy these fics! :

Outside of Andy’s modest house – the one he had worked for his whole life just to prove his step-dad wrong – the sun refuses to show itself, hiding from the world in its great, big cloak of stormy gray. Droplets of rain pinged against the windows. Somewhere, a fracture of lightning shrieked its annoyance with the sky. It was one of _those_ days, the sort of day that meant long afternoons in bed; meant lazy meals in less-than-decent amounts of clothing. When Andy wakes, his head spins a bit from the prior night. 

A different spatter of water pressure comes from the shower adjoining his room.

Without thinking to grab any clothes (or hell, a mint for that matter) he crawls out of bed and steps into the bathroom. The air is instantly overwhelming with a sharp, fruity fragrance and lush with steam. Andy avoids coughing and works his way into the shower behind April.

“It’s super rude to sneak up on me,” April half-sings. She doesn’t kick him out of the shower though, so that’s a good sign.

“So I should sneak up on other people…?” he asks.

“Yes, you just can’t sneak up on _me_ ,” she says without turning around.

“But I totally just did!”

“Nuh uh, I’ve got eyes in the back of my head,” she warns without looking around. “Could you hand me that stupid soap?” April asks as Andy’s eyes grow more curious by the second.

Andy leans over to the recess in the wall that’s just about neck height, at least to him, and weighs his options here. He considers just handing her the soap for less than half a second. Instead, interested in the mess that became of her normally straight hair, he lathers a bit of the soap onto his hands. April sighs pleasurably when he presses the hand onto the slope of her shoulder.

April turns eventually, letting more water reach her back to rinse Andy’s handiwork from her body. A tender smile, the kind that creases the corners of her lips and reaches her eyes, is all too relieving. She stands there, still.

He is more than happy to continue his work from here.

While his hands roam, April asks quite casually, “So… about last night…?”

Oh, yeah,” Andy mutters. “That was… I dunno, stupid I guess. Old, um, old feelings and stuff.”

“Don’t wanna talk about it?” April offers him.

He considers the question within the contours of her skin, accepting her offered hands. The ocean of suds in her palms elicit the plainest _giggle_ he’s ever heard from her. Andy wonders, while focusing on April’s clearly ticklish palms, as to whether she’ll hate him for this. Would he hate himself? She stamps her feet childishly, wringing her hands away from him in fits of laughter. It’s far too hilarious to handle right now.

Between laughs, April asking him if it’s okay, and the frankly intoxicating scent of a fruity cornucopia, Andy loses a bit of restraint.

“Well… I, or… you seemed pretty into going home last night–”

“Until I had a little _temptation_ ,” she purrs.

“Yeah, and I was being a dick.”

April cocks her head a little to one side.

“I mean, it was just…” Andy starts, but is cut off quickly.

“Dude, it was fine. Are you okay?”

“It just… it’s personal.”

“And taking a shower with your girlfriend is so impersonal,” April rolls her eyes, and clearly Andy can see the annoyance building.

“It was… it just hit home, okay? I know that’s stupid…”

“What hit home?” April asks, a caution in her voice he hadn’t heard before. The rain outside is insignificant here.

“You, y’know, leaving…”

“For the night?” she sounds incredulous now.

“It was dumb, I told you…!”

“So I can’t live my own life with you?” April asks, and suddenly that weight doubles down on him and crushes him beneath itself. “Is it all about you?” she continues, and there’s something there… something _familiar_ in her tone there.

“My ex said the same thing, y’know. She wondered why I wanted her around all the time. It’s selfish, yeah…. yeah it’s dumb,” Andy takes a deep breath. “She left to go to her mom’s house for a few days. Just a few nights when Jack was young, and… y’know, it was to get some things she wanted to move into the house. Just some stuff, a few things…”

“Andy, it doesn’t mean I don’t wanna hang out with you… I just wanna be with my daughter – or by myself – for a second sometimes,” she clarifies. The water is loud, pruning their skin but for some reason the hot water is cleansing; the water is bringing this clarity to them.

“Why d’you think I want you guys to move in so bad?” he asks in the smallest voice he’s ever had.

“What?”

“I… y’know, it’s a waste of money for you guys. You spend too much money to just come over here every night.”

“Andy, it’s not about my money–”

“I know, but–”

“It’s not, it isn’t. If it was, I would move in without a thought.”

“So why won’t you?”

“It’s not… I’d have to talk to Sam about it first,” April says. 

“Wait… so?”

“So, yes. Duh,” she scoffs. April steps out of the shower.

“I dunno why you’d wanna move in with a possessive jerk like me–”

“You’re not possessive. It was one little thing. If you start doing it every time I wanna go to a concert your cranky old bones can’t get out to, then it’ll be a problem,” April finishes with a grin, taking the literal only step between them. “I just wanted you to know I was a little annoyed.”

“Oh… oh, so that’s why it was–”

“So rough,” April finishes for him and nods, that wide smile so rare to see on her still there.

“I just don’t wanna lose you over old crap, y’know? Something so stupid like that,” he says, joining her on the towel spread out on the floor for their feet. April opens up the towel she’s wrapped in and Andy takes the bit of cloth. The twisting, silly jig they have to accomplish to dry the both of them at once leaves them with a smile each. “I’m sorry I dropped all of this on you,” he mutters sheepishly.

“Just give me a little space and a little time, okay?” she asks openly. “Also, I don’t think you really heard me right. I wanna move in with you.”

“Yeah…”

“So that means…?” she gestures to him.

“We’re gonna need better walls,” Andy nods knowingly.

A few minutes later, downstairs, April busies herself checking to make sure Jack is still snoring ( _check_ ) and that Sam is still at her place on the couch. Snores a-go, blanket balled up at her feet check, and everything seems fine. She looks at that blanket, the one Andy had to drape over her the night before because Sam pouted herself to sleep and refused any comfort. 

It’d be difficult getting Sam to come around, but knowing how cool she thought Andy was… April’s hopeful. Remembering her task, April checks for any chance of early waking when–

_“Yes!”_

Andy hollers at the top of his lungs upstairs. April shakes her head, knowing full-well her surprises rendezvous in the kitchen could not go uninterrupted.


	213. Just Right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was requested by fingersfallingupwards on tumblr! 
> 
> Thank you for the request, and I hope you like the fic :)

"Okay babe, how do I look?" Andy asks, standing tall in the same suit he wore to the first episode of his new cable access show. He looks at April like her opinion means life or death.

"Fantastic, just like ten minutes ago," she says with a nod. "And fifteen minutes ago, and yesterday..."

"Well, I want to make sure I look  _awesome_!" Andy exclaims, re-straightening his collar for the fourth time. April dreads what he does when there's a tie involved.

"For a bunch of kids?" April mutters. It's crazy how much effort, and  _work_ , Andy puts into this show that's on a cable access channel that he barely gets anything for doing. It's so unlike him, the normal Andy, but then again so is this suit.

Neither is  _bad_ , April thinks while eyeing him in that suit again.

"Yes, and they are my beloved audience of super duper cool kids," Andy cranes his neck awkwardly, and a loud crack rings out in their living room. April is only mildly unnerved by it. "And I want them to know that I am awesome, and I look way more professional."

"Professional is not the word I'd use," April says with a smirk she tries only a tiny, tiny bit to hide.

"What?"

When Andy turns to meet her interested gaze, he breaks out in a massive grin of his own. "Babe, y'know I  _am_ super nervous," he whispers despite nobody being in their house. "And, well, y'know..."

"I know  _just_ the trick," she says knowingly. Andy's eyes light up, and his face turns a bit pinkish.


	214. Love You Every Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was requested anonymously. I'm lumping it in with the rest of my little set of prompts that are Andy-focused (and I'm especially sorry to meet-me-onthe-equinox and lunabelle for having to hold your requests for a moment!) and combined two of them to come up with this one here...
> 
> Enjoy!

In the whole wide world of things that tick April off, this one is unexpected.

Every day for the past six weeks, Andy has been meticulously planning his meals, keeping his scheduled gym times (Andy keeping a schedule), and trying his best to get April to tag along with him for some of those too. That's fine, honestly. Even if she declines every time, it's fine and normal at this point. It is annoying, a little at least, but not unusual. April prides herself on the lack of care in all forms, especially physically. Andy on the other hand...

Andy tries not to be pushy but sometimes he just can't help it! One day, he'll be super old like Ben - and he seriously thinks about this way too much, all the time - or even Garry. April might be able to keep her body magically fit from the small amount of food she eats, but he's only ever gotten her to go on a few walks with him.

Most of those walks ended prematurely.

He honestly worries about her health sometimes, mostly because of Chris. That guy knew _everything_ about fitness. He's crazy, but Andy gets all kinds of cool tips and tricks from him every day. Andy just wants her to be healthy, even if he spends _too_ much time working out and ignoring his favorite fast food burgers. He knows it, but by now he can't stop himself.

Burgers are still awesome, but right now Chris has him on a nut-based shake-smoothie or something that honestly looks like sludge and mud mixed into a delightful, horrible peat. He tried to share it with April, but one whiff and a sip almost made her throw up. Her look was as priceless as that time she drank the Swanson family moonshine, except this time it was a whole lot funnier. She didn't straight up pass out this time. He doesn't mind the flavor.

April forces him to have a cheat day, and on one such day she asks, "Dude you used to love steak."

Andy looks down at the eight ounces of beef with longing. It's seared perfectly, medium-rare but a bit crispy, and a few fries swim in the plate. His mouth waters, but he tries his best to ignore it. "I do... I mean, I did. I used to," he says and takes a deep breath.

"Ugh, please don't meditate at dinner," April says with a sigh. She rolls her eyes and cuts her steak into another cubic bite and Andy tries to follow suit. Instead, he gets his knife in the steak and just watches April chew. She eyes him nervously, chewing slowly. "You okay?" she asks, and Andy can almost taste the beef in her breath.

His stomach growls noisily. "Yup," he lies.

"No you're not." April doesn't bother to look at him when she speaks, and sweat builds up on his forehead when she plainly refutes him like that. He glances down at his steak and desperately wants to... but what if he gets fat again!? April wrenches him out of the sudden nightmare of constant, perceived heart attacks with a snap of her fingers. "Andy, you're weirding me out right now and in a totally not-cool way."

"I'm fine, babe!" he tries, fruitlessly.

"Said the man who won't eat steak on his cheat day with his wife, like a normal weirdo," she mutters. The other patrons at JJ's can't hear them, April's favorite booth in the back - the one where somebody was stabbed a few years back - keeps them sequestered from the pack. "Whatever, Champion can eat whatever is left when we get home."

They sit in silence for a moment before April sights loudly. "Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?" he asks, but April just gives him a _no bullshit_ look that he rarely sees. "Okay, okay... well, um. April what if I, y'know, get fat again?"

"Then you'll be comfy and cute like you were when I fell in love with you." She puts the emphasis on the last bit, and Andy gives her a small grin. "What? There's nothing wrong with the fat Andy or the skinny Andy... it's just, I dunno, don't make yourself bummed like this."

"Huh?"

"I love you Andy, but you are miserable. Seriously, trust me dude because you are super depressed about this," April says with a nod.

"But... I could have heart attacks..."

"You could have one right now, and not even because of food," April points out. "Besides, what's the point? I eat like shit too, and look at me."

"Yeah, but you eat like almost nothing compared to me!" Andy knows that doesn't really matter, or he knows that Chris told him that once. _Moderation is key!_ he would say. But still, he _should_ devour this steak and then share the leftovers with Champion if there were any. That's what they always did.

"And it's mostly processed garbage and coffee, "she counters, "and tea and beer, but whatever. That stuff doesn't count."

"Babe, I just don't wanna die super young because I ate like crap when I was younger and then you'd be... y'know."

"What?"

"You'll be, like, alone and stuff," Andy whispers. He pokes at his steak with his fork. "If I... well, when I _y'know_." April shakes her head in confusion.

_How hasn't she thought about this?_

He picks up his knife and slices at the air in front of his throat, clicking his tongue harshly at the same time. "Y'know-"

"Don't talk about that," April says with the stoniest glare he's ever seen.

"Well, you always talk about-"

"Lame people dying. You're not lame. The joke isn't funny right now," April warns him.

"Okay, but-"

"Look, Andy... there is nothing, nobody, more awesome than you. Period," she starts, Andy watches her the whole time, a little entranced with this active April. It's different, and Andy can't feel like shit when she's this animated. "So it doesn't matter what you wanna do, as long as you're happy. That's the other point of marriage."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, we're happy _together_. If it makes you happy, then fine I just... I just wanna know, okay?"

"It does, kinda. But steak..." he trails off and rips the steak in half with a bite, splashing a bit and throwing a soggy fry or two off the plate. April laughs. "I love you so much babe. You're so smart."

"I love you too weirdo. Every way."

" _Every_ way?" Andy asks, quirking one eyebrow up while chewing. "Like, even the weird ones?"

"Especially the weird ones," April confirms with the tiniest smile.


	215. Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a mildly late Father's Day fic because, well, why not? It's been too long since I touched on the large LD family headcanon, so... here we go?
> 
> Enjoy!

_Hey dad!_

_Might not be able to make it tonight. School crap._

_Love you and mom._

Andy grins at the short string of texts rolling in from Victoria at ten o'clock in the morning. It's the earliest he's been up all weekend long, though April is still snoring happily away in bed. He wants to join her again, but he keeps reading those few texts. Every other morning has been a battle of reluctance, and other matters -- much more important,  _exhausting_ matters.

He doesn't expect much today, and that's probably okay anyways. A nice, quiet day on Father's Day. Compared to the last few years, it might be okay.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Babe, I'm sorry Jack was too busy to come over," April consoles him after she's sort-of awake. "He was too tired."

"Nah, it's cool." Andy waves her away with a half-smile. "Besides, he's  _tired_. Our boy is tired because he's been drafted. By the freaking  _Colts_."

"I know," April says with a sleepy grin. She's more excited for the two of them at that moment.

"First. Round. Pick." Andy closes his eyes and pumps his fist wildly into the air.

"Yep."

It was going to hurt not seeing Jack today, it really was. So, instead, Andy busies himself with focusing on the fact that his son is a wide receiver for the Indianapolis Colts. He could almost die on the spot.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Andy tries to ignore the fact that Robbie hasn't called in a month, let alone just for Father's Day. She probably has too much on her plate, Andy figures. Still, it  _is_ a slight bummer. He doesn't even touch the inkling at the question --  _I thought we were a big, happy family?_ \-- so Andy takes a brief walk around the block half out of boredom. It's the same story with Sam, and Eddie hasn't been very talkative since he came out. It's not like they haven't tried either, Andy just wants him to believe that his parents will support him every single way possible. At this point, any conversation will be the best present he could ever receive.

Instead, it will be quiet.

"That'll be cool," Andy says when April voices that exact thought around noon. He knows he doesn't sound very convincing, but neither does she.

"Hey, uh, don't you...?" April trails off, biting her lip and stammering. "Don't you... oh crap. I'm sorry babe, but I really need more coffee. For tomorrow, and the rest of the week and stuff."

"I'll go get some," he says with a genuine smile. Getting up from the couch after a quick kiss, he asks, "You wanna come?"

"Nah, I have... work stuff," April tells him. Another kiss and he's off to a quick trip for some coffee.

The trip is fine. Traffic is merciful with its brevity that day, with only a bit of hassle getting into the grocery store parking lot. Half the time in the store, Andy expects a call from somebody. Was he  _that_ bad of a father? It's there, less a thought and more a weight between his shoulders the whole trip. The past two and a half hours have been less than stellar, but they have their own lives to lead now. Even Victoria and Eddie, now. Even their babies.

The coffee is five bucks. Same price as always.

The drive back takes another ten minutes. Ten more minutes of contemplation. When he gets home, Andy takes a deep sigh and bites into the strip of beef jerky he bought for himself. The walk into the house is lonely. 

 _Am I that bad a dad_ and  _husband?_

"Home, babe!" he yells up the stairs from the kitchen. There's no response. She's probably still asleep. 

Then a giggle erupts from somewhere. April rarely giggles. Rarely, he thinks as he takes a step out towards the living room. 

"Surprise!" six voices yell in sync, or close enough. 

Andy's eyes burn with tears and his lips curl into a smile before he can help it. "You... you're all--?"

"Yep, we're here dad," Robbie exclaims, diving forward for a massive hug that he returns happily. Somehow, she seems even taller now. Or, maybe, he just misses looking someone in the eyes without craning his neck. "Sorry, school's really sucked lately."

"No, I get it. I'm just glad you're doing awesome, bug--"

"Dad," she whines at the nickname. Not without a smile in true Ludgate fashion, though.

"So, how's um... Sarah? What's her name?" Andy asks quietly while the other kids line up.

"Oh, that was just... uh, um," Robbie stutters. She finally burns as red as her dark cheeks allow and says, simply, "Fling."

"Speaking of school sucking," Andy changes the subject deftly, alleviating Robbie, to lean down for a hug with Victoria.

"Sorry for lying," she shrugs her shoulders but Andy just laughs out loud.

Jack is ecstatic, just like Andy is, and Eddie finally gives him a smile with a trembling lip. "Sorry for ignoring you guys," he says and Andy just answers with a kiss on his forehead and a deep embrace. "Love you, dad."

"Love you too," he answers back and finally lets go of his son. Eyeing the new haircut, Andy grins. It looks good on  _him_.

Eventually, after Andy realizes there's a cake and tries to figure out where a knife is, he notices that April and Sam are talking just a bit out of earshot. He doesn't bother to listen to anything, barreling between them and giving his daughter the widest smile he can manage, arms wide open. He tries not to notice the bags under her eyes or how feeble her hug is. 

She doesn't say much, and April shrugs when he asks. Instead, they go to the living room and dig into cake and catching up. Truly, Eddie just being around them again is a blessing and the ultimate gift. Not that they weren't accepting. Hell, that was the first thing Andy said when he came out. April was almost crushed by his almost random disowning for the past month, but she pretended that it was just a reaction to being accepted so willingly.

However, Sam doesn't speak much.

When the kids go to leave, Andy isn't sad. Hell, this morning he had wondered what he was doing wrong. In the end it was a surprise party, but one thing bothers him. It bothers him when Sam's the last one to leave, saying goodbyes and giving hugs to everyone fiercely, and it bothers him when he sees her car; it's the same car she's had since she saw the piece of junk and wanted it so badly that Andy couldn't say no. 

In the backseat, every bit of her belongings that Sam took with her when she went to "stay with a friend" in New York is stuffed into a messy clump. She fumbles with her keys and eventually drops them, sighing before picking them up.

"Hey, baby, you um... you doing okay?" Andy asks straight. 

"Yeah," Sam answers flatly. "Doing great."

"Yeah?"

"Well, y'know." Andy scratches the back of his neck and coughs. "Hey, you know what we haven't done in forever?"

Sam stands up but doesn't turn around. "Yeah, what's that?" she asks dryly, but Andy knows she would have just said her goodbye to him and April if she wanted to go.

"I hear there's a new  _Death Canoe_ out, and we haven't ordered pizza in, like, forev--"

He's cut off when Sam turns around and rushes him with a hug. The tears that fell from before well up again in his eyes, and Andy kisses the top of Sam's head. She chuckles against his chest, and the badass leather jacket riddled with patches of bands he's never heard of seems so thin when her heart beats so heavy and she's crying.

April comes out to see why neither has come back inside, and Andy beckons her with a wave. April joins the hug, knowing without having to be told. 

Later that night, after it's all been cried out, Andy tosses the rest of the blanket over Sam and April. The three of them are pajama'd up, tucked in, and the movie is just now finishing the opening credits. Andy leans down to take the first slice of Father's Day pizza, and Sam laughs when he nearly burns himself eating the ultra-hot cheese too fast.

 _Father's Day didn't turn out so bad,_ he thinks when the first camp counselor goes for a swim without noticing the canoe lurking on the other side of the lake. 


	216. Bad Birthday Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a month since I've posted something here?
> 
> Well, I blame Forever Enough and all the smut you've thrown at me lately! Anyways, this was requested anonymously on tumblr!
> 
> Enjoy.

All April wants to do on her birthday is sleep until, like, three o'clock in the afternoon with Andy, have him order a pizza, and then continue "sleeping" until the day's over. Is that too much to ask for?

Well, apparently.

Because instead of simply waking up, groggy and in dire need of toothpaste, she's greeted with an indecipherable shout and the  _honk_ of a party horn.  _Goddamnit, Andy_ , because of course he thought it'd be cute to make her crappy birthday breakfast that she'd love and be annoyed with all at once -- April can't eat more than a granola bar when she wakes up, but he probably just forgot -- and now she has to get up and rub the bleariness away from her eyes with her knuckles. Instead of that obnoxiously lovely sight, there's balloons in her room. Pink and black ones.

Oh, and Leslie and Ann.

"Happy birthday, babe!" Andy shouts, holding that stupid party  _honker_ in his hand. He rushes over to lean down and give her a hug that feels so unwelcome she wants to scream.

"Andy..."

"Happy birthday," Leslie follows suit. April hates this hug even more, because her entire situation is a mess and she has all these people in her bedroom and Andy's just beaming like she isn't about to freak out in a million different ways. "So, Andy and I planned everything out today."

"Yeah, Leslie's so smart with planning stuff," Andy chimes in.

"Thank you," Leslie notes and continues. "But, of course, the wonderful Ann Perkins volunteered to help and--"

"Ugh, Ann's here?" April groans and pulls her covers up to her neck, peering around the mess of balloons that they must have sneaked in while she was sleeping. Ann does poke her head into sight and April pulls the blankets all the way over her head. "Please, go away."

"But April, we've got a hike planned and a visit to the--"

"Wait, we planned a hike?" Andy asks and she hears genuine confusion in his voice. April already knows what Leslie and Andy planning meant -- Leslie planned, Andy was told to go get favors and food. Groaning  _quite_ loudly, she wishes that Leslie would have let him plan this so the prospect of a hike would be nowhere near her life.

"Yes, Andy, a hike! We have incredible scenery and April spends all of her time inside--"

"Where I like it," April yells through her blanket and sits up in a huff. She ignores her hair flying in fourteen directions --  _Thanks, Andy_ \-- and the bags under her eyes at her own frustrations. "Leslie, I don't... thanks and everything, or whatever, but I don't wanna do that crap."

"Yeah, I thought we were going to take April to a graveyard museum or something," Andy says, and his confusion is clear.

"See? He gets it," April gestures to Andy. "You're so smart, babe."

"Aw," Andy grins and waves her off.

"But... Ann and I spent so much time developing a schedule for--"

"Okay, first of all, I had nothing to do with that," Ann notes with a laugh. "Happy birthday April, but Leslie kinda--"

"Look, I just want my friend to have a great birthday, so I planned the greatest birthday on the planet and--"

"And it's a hike, and a visit to somewhere that's likely totally boring?" April asks, sighing. She wipes at her eyes, getting the grit from her eyes. 

"Yes," Leslie defends. "Nature, which is something that I know you enjoy. There could be animals along the way, and you... don't like knowing anything about anybody," she clearly deflates as she speaks.

"Leslie, seriously I just wanted to sleep in all day," April chuckles.

"But you do that every day!"

"Yeah, but we could sleep in... like, y'know, _sleep in_ more," April says pointedly. Everyone catches her drift and Ann glances at Andy quickly with her nose quirked.

He takes note of the look and nods knowingly. "Yeah, she means like sex," Andy explains to nobody.

Leslie groans. "Well, maybe... we can salvage something from this itinerary?" She hands April a black binder with a collage of photos April didn't know she'd taken of her at work. 

A pen dangles on a chain attached to the black binder. Inside is an abstract, a few pages of notes on April's hobbies and likes and dislikes, and then finally a neat timeline. It's only a little worrying. Each item on the timeline has information on the locations and pages of potential activities in store, and April shakes her head. There's  _hours_ of work here. Days, even. She keeps flipping and there's just more and more, and after Andy flops down on the bed, rests his chin on her shoulder to look at the binder with her, April's eyes are wide in disbelief. Okay, so she knew this couldn't have taken seconds when it comes to Leslie Knope, there's no way.

But this?

"So, is there anything cool in there?" Andy asks, shifting to move an arm around her shoulder and look down with her. 

"I mean... the hike is lame, so that's a no go," April says slowly, looking back down at the timeline. There's something in the afternoon that's not entirely terrible. "Museum is boring, no. Ew--" April shows the pages to Leslie and Ann and points at an item on the list, " _shopping with the girls_?"

"What?" Leslie asks, strangely like it's the greatest injustice she's ever heard in a question.

"How about..." April sighs and points at the  _activity_ \-- ugh, the whole word is just  _ugh_ to her right now -- and Andy's eyes go wide. He laughs out loud. "I mean, you guys are gonna leave for a while but..."

She takes the pen and circles  _Start an amateur all-women's roller derby team_ several times and draws several thick arrows pointing to it. When April shows Leslie, that great cackle comes out of her and April manages a smile.

"Ann, I told you to strike that one off!" she turns and looks at Ann, who only shrugs. 

"I thought it'd be funny," Ann says honestly.

For a moment, it's not all bad. But, really, how much  _time_ could this have taken Leslie? April's never really been confronted with that personally. Yes, Leslie would spend a thousand years working on projects, like the Harvest Festival, but April thought that energy was entirely for work. Yet, here is this little bit of care and genuine work for her that was never expected at all. 

And, for some reason, that makes this okay. That, and of course the image of Ann falling over while trying to roller skate. That was pretty good, too.

"Babe," she nudges Andy after a few moments.

"Oh, right," Andy stands and clears his throat. "Okay, well... we'll be around at whenever time. Um, like four or something?"

"Maybe a bit--"

"Four!" April shouts, pumping her fist in the air and flopping back in bed. 

"Yeah, so that," Andy says and opens their bedroom door. "So, um, we're gonna... celebrate in our marital bed with some good, old--"

"TMI," Ann says and rushes out the door, Leslie following suit.

Just after Andy closes the door, April's chest finally depressurizes and she can breathe again. She's almost relieved until a shouting  _Happy birthday_ is heard through the walls, Leslie screaming before leaving. Sitting up a bit, Andy's got his doofy grin and she beckons him with a curled finger for some celebrations.


	217. Nostalgia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymously requested on tumblr.
> 
> Saying no more because the very idea kills me inside in the best, most adorable way.

Part of the difficulty in articulating nostalgia is the exact nature of it – it’s so familiar and barely even tangible at the same time; it’s at the tip of your tongue but tastes so unique it can’t be right. 

April could spend the whole day digging into her thoughts, but she has other things to worry about. Namely, her giant husband stumbling in his spot, awkward motions on the used rollerblades they went out and bought on a whim. She still has a pair of those classic skates she squirrels away in a box every move.

Maybe that’s why she’s so into this, the old feeling of spontaneity that’s not exactly _missing_ in their life but… but something’s different. It’s dangerous, technically, and ridiculous that she’s in her forties and teaching her fifty-two year old husband how to roller skate. Andy grins through the helmet straps flopping about his face.

The helmet was her idea. Again, things are different.

But then a blur slides past her peripherals and April smirks to herself. 

“Mom, look at Robbie!” Sam points from her perfectly safe spot away from concrete curbs and broken bones in the grass. “She’s so _fast_.”

Andy whoops out. “That’s my Bug,” he shouts and though she is ripping around the block her reddening face at the nickname is obvious.

“Dad!” is all she yells back.

April finishes strapping herself in, eyeing up the four of them. The twins would undoubtedly get somebody hurt. It’s not necessarily either of them, either. Jack hesitated at first but he decided to just hang out with the twins and watch them. Which, of course, meant he would steal away some time to play video games and make sure they were still breathing.

That counted as babysitting in their books.

“Babe, what made you decide to do--” Andy looks down at her. “Y’know, this?” Sometimes he forgets that she played softball in school, and that she doesn’t hate moving around _that_ much. It’s usually the people she has to encounter along the way.

April stops to ponder it.

Nostalgia, that fickle word. It’s easier to fumble with it than those skates. A park not very different from this cul de sac’s corner is fresh in her mind, a smile not unlike the one she feels sketch itself onto her face greets her in that park. Her dad is just as much a klutz as Andy, and it’s hilarious to think of his prim and proper, little smirk and freshly pressed khakis covered in grass when he inevitably falls.

Her mother claps and laughs, calling this nonsense but stopping none of it. Natalie is old enough to join, but she sulks for a while before joining in because, in one of those few memories, April is having the time of her life.

“Mom?” a voice interrupts her reverie.

Roberta is panting heavily, looking down at April with one hand shading the sun from her eyes. 

“Yeah?” April answers quietly, standing up to totally not meet Robbie’s frankly excessive height.

“Are we gonna race or what?”

This is going to be one of those memories too, April can tell already.


	218. Maybe Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously!
> 
> Season 4-ish pregnancy scare fic incoming.

Andy tells himself it’s cool. It really is, because the look on her face when the test reads a negative is nothing short of total relief.

He always thought protection was called that for a reason -- it always _protects_ you from babies. But, in this case, he must have screwed something up and just an hour ago April was _losing her mind_ in the bathroom.

“So... that’s the best thing I’ve seen, like, ever,” April confides as she kicks open the bathroom garbage can and drops the test in with zero care for any of it. “I mean, can you imagine raising a _kid_?”

“Uh huh,” Andy mutters and shakes his head. “Totally, yeah. Lame. Stupid, huh?”

April stares at the little silvery container and sighs, setting the lid back on right. She spends a moment fiddling with her ring and looking at that can. 

“It’d be stupid,” she says, though this time there’s an apparent lack of confidence. “It’d be a bad idea, right?”

When she finally looks at him, it’s not a sure statement. There are so many things in their life, their lives, that is and are perfect. Fun is no further away than stealing her dad’s car and taking a road trip, or scaring strangers -- and neighbors -- by dressing Champion up as a ghoul and walking him down the street. 

And this, their life, it’s so easy.

So April doesn’t look at him like she’s convinced herself quite yet, though Andy’s pretty sure it’s not that easy. A moment ago, she _was_ sure. But then he had to go and open up his stupid mouth.

“Yeah, babe,” he answers her. The sigh she lets loose is followed by a genuine smile and a nod. “It’d be totally terrible to have a kid!”

“Right now,” April tacks on, as if it’s obvious.

Lost, Andy just shrugs. “Yeah...”

“Maybe at some point we’ll...” April pauses. She toys with her ring again. “We’ll adopt creepy twins.”

“Aw--”

“From Romania,” she blurts out like the afterthought it clearly is and Andy never notices. 

“Yeah, maybe,” he agrees and April leans into his side to wrap her arms around his waist. “Maybe one day we’ll do something like that, but right now’s pretty cool right?”

“Totally,” she says into his chest.

They share a smile and a kiss, and then agree that the whole ghoul-dog idea is pretty great. Maybe next time they’ll carry Champion in a stroller over to her parents’ house.


	219. That First One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy NOLYversary everybody!
> 
> Two whole years of... this. Thank you to everyone that reads, started reading just now, might start reading in the future and find this note, and those of you that will outlast us all.
> 
> You're all the best.

Their first year anniversary is weird, there's a flooded bathroom, and then some roleplaying. In that exact order.

Andy blames it on Ben, and though April deep down doesn't believe him she also, absolutely and one-hundred percent does super believe him. While Ben scrambles to get a plunger that isn't in the house, Andy catches her attention with a finger pointed to the ceiling and a satisfied smirk all over his cute, chubby face. It's been one year and she still can't get over that she can just think that without any sort of awkward, internal repercussions. Better yet, she can  _act_ on those thoughts. Still, there's a whole lot of water on the bathroom floor and she's a little curious what there is to be so smug about at that moment.

"Babe, would you believe me if I said I did that on purpose?" Andy asks with a fine coating of that Dwyer-branded suaveness. He grins again.

"Yes," she answers without any hesitation, or a smile. "It's still kinda annoying."

"Exactly," Andy says as if it makes any hint of sense.

"Yep, so now we have to--"

"Ah!" Andy interrupts her with that same self-satisfied look. "See, that's where you're wrong babe. You're super smart, but not Macklin smart..."

"Okay,  _Burt_ ," April stresses the name and has to bite back a smile, turning it into a roll of her lips that he knows all too well. With a cool shift to even more of a slouch, April transitions into her smooth, nonsensical accent, "Why the distraction? Who've you got on your tail  _this_ time?"

"Ma'am, that is top secret information."

She can't have looked away for two seconds and somehow, from somewhere, a pair of sunglasses has mysteriously appeared on his face. Why was  _that_ working for her?

"Maybe you were thinking the..." April glances at the bathroom, where Ben's shouting for them in dire need of assistance that they clearly do not want to give, "Governor would find out you sneaked into his secret ball to come whisk me away?"

"It's the perfect diversion," Andy-turn-Burt growls with pride. "Besides, it's a special day for you and me, Ms. Snakehole."

"Oh?" April slithers forward, putting an arm around his neck and lazily stroking the back of his neck with her fingertips.

"One year ago, today--" Andy/Burt takes a firm grip of her waist and dips her backward, a little wavy and sloppy because she almost loses balance but he manages to hold onto her. She looks up at him, silly grin and all in this absurd, all-too-athletic for her position that she can already feel failing. "We first met in that bar."

"Oh, yes," April purrs.

"I think we need to celebrate such a... momentary occasion." Andy doesn't skip a freaking beat, and April breaks for half a second to chuckle to herself. "What?"

"Nothing," she assures him before returning to character. "What's your plan?"

"I was thinking maybe we go to that nice wine place in Eagleton. Y'know, kinda like a bar but for rich weirdos, and Macklin and Snakehole can  _ruin_ the place," he whispers and gives her a nip of a kiss at the side of neck.

They speed out of the house before Ben can finish another howl of desperation. Leslie would probably visit later anyways, so there was no need for either the World's Greatest FBI Agent or the Mysterious Con-Artist Widow to be there in the first place. 

Besides, they have work to do.


	220. Lonely Street, Washington D.C.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a silly little idea that practically fell in my lap.
> 
> I blame books and the wealth of them that I must come across for this fic, whatever you may think of it either way.
> 
> Trying a different thing here, stylistically. I think I deserve a little freedom now and again...

Up along a winding black asphalt road lined with concrete walks, sheltered in clusters of similar houses with similarly small lawns, trailing onward to the pink horizon, is a six-year old boy.

On this very day, something peculiar is to happen. Not so much in that a starship will land in his front yard, whisking him away to adventures untold, or that a strange letter will inform him and his family of an odd, pale folklore of magic. Instead, he will say goodbye to someone very dear to him. To a boy, a little child with no context for the world greater than that which is very near, the world is a microscopic bubble. To him, to Jack Ludgate-Dwyer, the world is his street, his parents, his school. His world is his friendship with Tim Wallace across the street.

On that road, the one lined with nice sidewalks and somewhat well-kept lawns you know, a pair of white and orange trucks line the Wallaces' driveway -- one from garage to street and the other parked on the curb with a lazy lack of precision or care. Jack has been sitting outside for an hour, having woken up that much earlier than his parents ever would. He hopes desperately to hear that this is a joke. Friends are not allowed to move away, and friends should not have to say goodbye to one another for any reason whatsoever, you know. It's his belief, of course, that they'll grow up right next to each other, hang out forever, and nothing beyond that has ever entered his thoughts.

Ms. Wallace does not help the movers, but Jack assumes they're just nice. He doesn't really understand that they've been paid to move these things, Tim's belongings and his toys and everything. All of these are to end up just an hour and a half away from where April Ludgate-Dwyer and Andy Dwyer wake up minutes after. 

Another thing Jack doesn't know about, or think of -- his name is different from his father's, but he won't question it for another ten years at which point, after a strange conversation with his dad, none of it makes sense to him. But at least he knows, even if it's nonsense.

But back to Jack, who turns his focus to the blade of grass he delicately pulled from the yard before we've ever walked up beside him along that rather normal, suburban road. 

Without much warning, his mother sits down next to him. She watches the movers with Jack, who pay them no mind despite being easily seen from the Wallaces' driveway, and after a moment of silence embraces him with one arm. They've known about this longer than either of the children caught in the crossfire, a pain that has sat within Andy for much longer than he could care to admit. Between never telling his son that his friend would be moving away, and April fearing the same event, life has been an anxious mess for the Dwyer family.

Instead of that fear, now, the boy's mother can only keep him close and whisper something about how this wouldn't be so bad. Jack, we know, doesn't' believe this and that is fine, because whether he has a word in edgewise or other there is no changing this move. April tries to explain, but the boy just shrugs her off. She even promises that they will go visit, but he doesn't believe her even if he wants to do just that.

The mother contemplates cursing the new house their neighbors move to, but decides better against it. After all, she knows nothing of actual curses -- had she, the only thing that would occur is an unfortunate accident or two that might leave Jack more depressed than ever. She offers to fight the moving-men for Jack, who laughs and points to her belly as evidence for her inability to get into a sudden scrap with burly men hauling furniture. She claims there are other ways to fight back.

After a few more minutes, the boy looks out across that normal street and searches in plaintive hope for two figures to exit the house. It takes a while, but they do. They have bags in their hands, not grocery bags filled with sweets and snacks they can enjoy together  _across the street_ , but the big, strapped kind that obviously hold clothes. Jack just sees Tim, who notices the mother and son watching.

In that darkening, reddish light the boys catch gaze. No wind stirs the chill of the morning into them, so they stay transfixed. For their lives, this was supposed to be forever -- best friends. They were to stay friends forever, that was the pact they made in a tree fort built by a mutual friend's father with far too much time. For two children incapable of seeing the world past the end of the street or their shared classroom, this would have to be goodbye. Ms. Wallace ushers him forward, paying no mind to April or Jack. Just like that, what should have been a goodbye is snatched away, and the boy's mother holds him closer as warm light spills down the street lined with concrete, brick, and sorrow.

As the trucks leave, only the four-door sedan remains in the driveway. The passenger side door opens, and Tim -- the other boy on the other side of that street, whose story this very much isn't though it be in remarkable parallel -- steps out. Jack sits up straighter, watching the other boy across the street to see if he would do anything.

He simply lifts his hand into a wave, the surest goodbye they will ever get. 

The dew dried on Jack's hands sticks fingers together in the response, a moment before they're unstuck and free to wave in the morning air. The boy's mother joins him, and together they wave the car off as it sets towards something that may as well not exist in Jack's mind.

His mother persuades him to come back inside a while later, and there they sit together with Andy. 

Back down that road, where the sedan drives idly towards a new beginning for young Tim, neither of its passengers can hear the sound of a little boy crying back at the now-lonely street. 


	221. Would You Rather...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what this is.
> 
> You're welcome.

While another rerun of  _The Price is Right_ rings dull in the background, April shifts in her comfy Andy-shirt-turned-pajama-shirt and back into her boyfriend's oh so extra comfy chest. Watching idiotic old people spin a weirdly tall wheel for money, maybe, sparks an idea to spice the night up.

"So, would you rather sleep with Ned Beatty, Doris Roberts, or Jim Belushi?" Naturally, Bob Barker doesn't deserve a spot here. He'd probably neuter Andy, and that would be extraordinarily unfortunate for April.

"Aw, babe, that one's too hard!" Andy complains through a mouthful of pizza. His eyes go wide with realization. "Wait! Why can't it be... who would you rather eat pizza with?"

"Because that's easy?" April shakes her head in her  _no, this won't do_ manner that he's so used to by now. "Okay, who would you rather sleep with for pizza?"

"Same three?" Andy asks, so very serious. 

"Of course," April half-scoffs.

"Hmm... I think Doris Roberts would be very gentle," Andy mutters and sighs. "But, I guess Jim eats a lot of pizza so he probably would have some?"

"Like, right there? Ew," April says through a disgusted laugh.

"Maybe we'd do it on pizza," Andy defends.

"Maybe  _we'll_ do it on pizza," April says, turning her head to look at him. After a moment of that assumed sexy comment, they both grimace at each other.

In unison, they say: "Too greasy."

Another  _doo-doo-duh-doo_ plays out, that silly jingle that April loses her mind around all the time, and Andy pulls her tighter against him. Normally, she'd have thought her Would You Rather funny, weird, and cool because how off-putting it sounded. Instead, she was suddenly very jealous of Jim Belushi. 

Had anyone ever thought that? Ever?

Instead of letting that strange worry nestle according to the lesser Belushi, April felt that tug and fully turned to straddle Andy's lap after an awkward second of shuffling.

"I'm the only one allowed to sleep with you for pizza," April announces in total revolt of her previous line of questioning.

"Yep," Andy mutters, clearly struggling with his situation as a direct result of their physical placement situation. "Totally... I mean, if you want that is."

"That's what I just said," April deadpans.

"So then you and I will sleep together and eat pizza," Andy declares and his hands at her hips are too delightful to ignore further.


	222. Skunkbaby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by meet-me-onthe-equinox on tumblr!
> 
> Sam's first day of high school :)

"So, what's the plan again?"

"Go to homeroom, put the stinkbomb in the teacher's desk, and pretend my mom is a skunk," Sam parrots with the zipper of her backpack nervously in one hand. "Then, when they ask why I did it I'll start screaming."

"Possession? Nice," April nods along with a little grin.

There's an awkward pause where neither of them know how to follow this up, but Sam clears her throat first. Even though, of course, she says nothing. They idle along the traffic wasting away the morning light on the way to her _first_ day of high school. April might have skipped out on work a little bit, but she had a clear schedule and if anyone complained there'd be arson to worry about. The only sadness is that Andy couldn't make it.

Hungover Johnny Karate is _impossible_ to wake. And you bet April has tried _everything_.

To say the least, knowing just that and just that this is the first step to another part of Sam's life, April is very relieved to have this prank playlist in store to share with Sam. It helps ease the process.

After another breath, Sam asks, "Mom, could you... um, drop me off away from-"

"Gotcha."

Sam smiles to herself, looking down at her backpack. She manages to mumble a thanks.

There's no stinkbomb inside her bag, but April isn't against it. Neither is there a skunk suit - again, April wants nothing more than to ring her beautiful stink-baby home for an out-of-school suspension on her first day - but that acknowledgment is worth it.

April parks a block away, still in sight of the school. Other pre-teens stalk into the entryway of the high school, the crappy metal doors getting more work than they have in all the summer months put together. Sam takes a deep breath.

"Y'sure you don't want a bunch of cherry bombs or something?" April asks, hoping it sounds as reassuring as she means it.

"Nah." Sam shrugs, and leans over to kiss her on the cheek. "Thanks, uh... see you after school."

April mumbles in response and has to inhale, deep, to ease the nerves. Maybe to really calm herself she'd go and grab a frozen pizza and call off the day to nurse Hung(over) Mr. Karate back to health.


	223. Interpretations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ???
> 
> One month, nearly. What the hell!
> 
> Requested by meet-me-onthe-equinox on tumblr! Thank you for everything, really. And to everyone else that bothers to care, you're all Grade-A Rad.

“What are you doing?”

Andy jolts up from his uncomfortable limb-angling meant to shield from precisely this, sweat already building when April’s glaring him down. Normally he’d be fixated on the plastic bag with delicious smells wafting from it, but now is not the time.

“Uh, just… reading–” he tucks the notepad underneath his armpit. “Reading, uh, nothing.”

“Nothing?” April deadpans, eyes fixed on the red header jutting out clearly from his shirt. “Dude!”

“What?”

“Didn’t your mom ever tell you sneaking into people’s things is super rude?” April sets the bag down on her desk, leans over, and pulls the pad away from Andy, now a little damp. She rubs minute creases away with her thumbs until the pages are relatively flat and sighs.

See, normally April and Andy share their lunch break and it’s a blast between all the spitballs they fire at shoeshine stand passersby and sloppy makeouts at the same spot. It’s great. Today, however, April unceremoniously left during lunch. So, instead of greeting her at her desk, Andy sat down and waited. And waited. And, oh man, does waiting in an office while everyone else eats lunch get super frustrating. That’s when the pad of paper with a few doodles on it caught his eye.

April mumbles something about an invasion of privacy.

“Uh, hey… y’know, Mouse Rat could use a super cool cover for our album or… whatever.” Andy shrugs, pretending to play it cool.

April’s stare-back cuts his breath off for a moment. He coughs, she smirks.

“I mean–” he wrings the frankly dirty collar of his flannel. “Those are… awesome.”

“How much did you see?” April’s voice is suddenly very quiet.

“Oh… only some of it?” Andy scrunches his face up, wincing one eye closed. He peeks out, expecting her to be furious.

“It’s lame…” April starts, instead of angry she peers _through_ the paper and distantly elsewhere, “I dunno. It’s cool that you didn’t hate them, though.”

“Well, you’re really, _really_ good and the uh… the one with Ben in a car crash is super funny,” Andy admits. Most of the drawings were a little too surreal for him to get, and half of them _were_ work-hour doodles stretching half of a small page.

April smiles the briefest, looking back down at the pad. 

“So… I am, uh, sorry for invading your private stuff like that…”

“Ugh.” April rolls her eyes. “Stop apologizing.”

“But–”

“I bought takeout for lunch, and it’s getting cold,” she lifts the plastic bag and Andy rockets out of her chair. 

“So you’re not mad?”

“I guess a little bit, but now… uh, now we can, like, share stuff and personal stuff,” April says with that confused sloth in her voice like she’s coming to terms with the idea word by word. “That sounds gross.”

“Ew.” Andy fake-shivers all over and she chuckles. _Worth it._ “Except that sounds pretty cool. Like, I know you’re an amazing artist and you know I’m an amazing singer.”

April rolls her eyes in response. She takes his hand and guides him back to the shoeshine stand to enjoy their usual ritual, but something is a fair bit lighter in the atmosphere of it all, as if anything here was ever dour. Andy neglected to tell her that he _did_ see those drawings that were more like formerly blank pages filled black like a dark canvas, marks erasing new negative space into impressions of wispy figures, vine-like threads, and a small heart in the distance.

He wasn’t, like, any good at art or anything, but he’s pretty sure he got that one. It’s reflected in the way she tosses a french fry at him with a mischievous grin that’s saying, “I bet you won’t return fire.”

She’s always wrong, and her laughter is so worth it.


	224. The Family Kingdom-ish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously on tumblr. I have no idea what this is so please don't hurt me.
> 
> Family Halloween costumes, that's what it is! Right, right, right... Enjoy :)

"Witch!"

"Honey, we can't _all_ go as witches," Andy tries to ease Robbie into picking something different this year.

"Why not?" She asks with the same annoyed tone her mother has when she chimes in with another:

"And why not?"

Andy struggles with that for a moment, trying to pinpoint why exactly two infants can't be baby witches.

"How are we supposed to get makeup on babies? Isn't that, like, not good?" Andy asks, seriously.

"Why?" And with that, without realizing, Andy had started an inquisitive ball rolling for Robbie.

"Uh… because it's bad for, for their skin?"

"Why?

"Because it hurts it," Andy tries, hoping it would stall her brain out on the simple answer.

"Why? Does mommy's makeup hurt me?" She asks it so plainly that Andy's face burns and April perks up.

In the meanwhile of the conversation, she's been busy keeping Jack up to date on how to hold a baby and not do anything stupid. Lucy is fast asleep, but her sister refused to go at the same time for the requisite hour and a half before she rioted herself back awake. At least there was some extra help this time around. Thank God for that, because she swears that she heard Robbie say she's been getting into her makeup.

"I, uh…" he starts. Andy's eyes wander, unblinking and wide, over to April and she simply mouths, _Later_. "It's not the same, right? They were just born a little while ago…"

"Oh." Robbie nods. Andy sighs relief, but he's quickly cut off with another, "Why?"

April leaves them alone to mentally spar, something that never gets old. She's not sure _why_ it bothers her that Andy and Robbie get into her makeup, perhaps because this is the first time she's hearing about it and apparently it's been going on behind her back. Without her to join in on the fun.

Her husband and daughter absolutely useless to decide what to be, she tries Jack in the living room. One of the twins – April's been so tired lately that for a moment she forgets which is in his arms but the _V_ sewn into the little hat on her head (thanks, Leslie) is enough to jog her foggy brain.

"Hey bud, you know how we're gonna go as a group costume…"

"'Cause it's easier and cheaper?" he says, the last word quieter than the others.

"Yeah…"

"It'll be cool." He shrugs from his seat on the couch.

"Well, your dad is busy–"

"Bug, it just works that way, okay!" Andy interrupts, led out of the kitchen and through the living by his hand.

"But _why!?"_ Robbie nearly shouts, and April has to stifle her laughter.

"Yeah," April doesn't bother to finish what she was trying to say before. "So, any ideas?"

"I wanted to go as a knight, remember?"

"Yeah, I know… maybe your dad could be a dragon or something…"

"You could be the dragon?"

April gives him a very pointed look and he giggles but stops talking. "But what are _they_ going to be?"

"They could go as baby dragons!"

"Or dragon eggs!" With a white pillow case thrown over her, Sam barges into the conversation, voice muffled and her eyes mostly hidden behind the poorly cut holes.

"And who are you?" April asks, feigning fear.

"The... uh, ghost!"

"The _castle's ghost_ ," Jack says like he's just figured out how to sneak an extra few hours past bedtime.

"So what's dad gonna be?" April asks, amused by this bizarre think tank.

"Uh..." Sam trails off and her pillow case slumps in thought.

There's silence for a while and then a bundle of black as tall as Robbie and with little hands cupping where a mouth should be - April's pretty sure that's one of her dresses piled on her - yells out a trumpeting, "Duh dun dah!"

And out pops Andy, an exquisite pink on his cheeks and a poor blend of odd reds that look like magic marker, smudged concealer, and a touch of sparkles. Leaping another step forward, he jams his fists at his hips with a dramatic flair and tilts his head back, chin high to the sky.

A fluffy pink tutu they bought for Robbie that she consequently hated (after declaring it her favorite thing ever just minutes before in the store they left that day) is strapped to his waist. It looks as if it might just break.

He looks at April, grinning madly. She sighs and shakes her head but instead of what she wants to say, she hears her children laughing a storm and says through a chuckle, "Fine."


	225. Suck It, Sour Patch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More fic of the Halloween variety! Requested by lunabelle. 
> 
> Jack + Andy have a very important father-son conversation.

“But dad--!”

“Look, I already explained that the most important candy is chocolate so you have to give mom all of your sour candy,” Andy explains to a very agitated three year old.

“But...”

“Nobody but your mom likes that stuff, duh.”

“I do!”

“Well... why would you want Sour Patch Kids when you can have a Snickers?”

Jack sits there, staring into his pillowcase and sighs the most melodramatic heave of air possible like an exasperated, bankrupt accountant. Andy doesn’t get it -- chocolate candy bars were the whole point of Halloween. Trick-or-treating for fruity candies sounds so lame and, just half an hour ago, Jack agreed with him. Standing up suddenly, he walks into the kitchen with his goodies.

_Well, maybe..._

“Andy!” April’s voice rings out, and a moment later she’s peering around hallway’s corner with a furious glower.

“Oh, hey babe...”

“Jack, your dad and mama need to have a conversation about what the _best_ candy is, okay?”

“Uh huh,” a little voice pipes up from behind April.

Andy’s pretty sure his son scampered off with his entire share of Jack’s candy. It only hits him later, and his wife is the cleverest person on the planet. 


	226. Peek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so stupid.

“April, it’s Halloween and--”

“And?”

“Well, we usually... _celebrate_ ,” Andy is very quiet over the phone. It’s really the only time he’s this quiet, as if everyone on that stupid, not-here island will hear him. “Y’know...”

“Oh, I know...” April chuckles and takes it upon herself to go for a walk. It’s certainly not for the obvious, express purpose of this call. “Andy, seriously? You’re _calling_ to ask for--?”

“Nothing!”

“Andy...”

“Look, I just wanted... y’know, like, a peek.”

“Dude, did you just ask for a peekaboob?” April hisses under her breath, already inside the Pawnee City Hall ladies’ room.

“I, uh... didn’t wanna impose on my beautiful wife,” Andy stutters out, and she can’t believe he’s being so defensive about asking for nudes.

As if it was a problem with her? Especially after _asking_ when she’s already missing any sort of contact with him?

She promptly ended the call, enjoying the satisfaction of hanging up on him. It was even better when he texted her back, after she sent him just a quick tease -- shirt in teeth, arm covering just enough prepared -- and luxuriated in his response for a while.

Ever since Andy stayed in London, their texts haven’t been _nearly_ as filthy as she’d like and the rest of the night keeps her sated for now.


	227. Stop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested by meet-me-onthe-equinox on tumblr as "Jack's first words."
> 
> I need this now more than ever, the writing thing. I hope you all enjoy this and can get a bit of escapism with me.

At this point, it’s getting a little bit ridiculous. One time, just one time, April read that their one-year-old baby could be speaking by now and here they were. More specifically, April was in the kitchen trying to relax after work and Andy could _not_ stop singing.

“ _My baby won’t say a thing_ ,” Andy sang from the living room, Jack in his arms and moving about between a dance and playing airplane. “ _He’s gonna sit there and laugh and be cute and never say a word.”_

April had to admit, sometimes she was a little worried about this as well but Andy took to the age range a little too seriously. Now he spent every waking minute that he could trying to coerce Jack into saying something. Normally, their son would get by with the usual babbles and half-words approaching a thought, but then he’d just giggle – like he was doing now in Andy’s arms in the living room – and Andy would deflate entirely. 

It’s not that he hasn’t caught her singing to the little pumpkin, but it’s usually when she’s dead tired so she can make excuses. 

“Andy, maybe if you try not singing to him he’ll say something,” she shouted over the din in her head.

He nearly rushed in, Jack still slung in his arms. “Babe, could you get him to talk?”

“Jack?”

“Well, duh.”

“Get him… Andy, when he’s ready to talk he’ll talk–”

“But you said that it should be between nine and fourteen months–!”

“Yes,” April stopped in exasperation. “ _Between_ Andy! And that doesn’t mean he won’t wait until, like, eighteen months or something.”

“But that’s so long away! He’s so smart already, he knows how to finish all the block puzzles before I do,” Andy said loudly, and Jack not knowing what was particularly going on just looked between the two of them, confused. 

“Andy–”

“You’re right… well, maybe if you sing to him it’ll work?” Andy tried.

A squeak interrupted them, but April paid no attention. “I don’t sing to him–”

“Do too!”

“Never.”

“I caught you last night, c’mon,” Andy tried.

“Andy–!”

“Stop,” a small voice interrupted their childish argument, if you could even call it that much.

April did just as little Jack said. She couldn’t do much other then leave her mouth hanging open dumbly. When she tried to say so much as a word, Jack leaned forward a bit -- still safe in Andy’s hands -- and put his palm up to her mouth and repeated, “Stop.”

Jack moved away then sat back up in Andy’s arms. Turning as best he could, he did the same to Andy.

They were speechless for another couple moments as their son kept repeating that word, almost proud of himself. 

Andy nearly screamed when he finally spoke, and he couldn’t stop kissing Jack, April, and yelling how proud he was and how amazing everything in the world was, is, and would be. April herself felt that burning smile refuse to leave even when they both tired themselves out later.


	228. Pretzels and Play-Doh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requested anonymously on tumblr.

Andy was very busy staring at a store that fit neatly into a cubbyhole recess in a wall, looking more like a stall, where the most delicious golden brown soft pretzels were being sold. Too busy, in fact, to notice that April was practically heaving children on every limb. 

“Andy,” she groaned and the spell was broken. When he caught her furious gaze, he quickly took some of the load from her. “We’re only here for, like, another week and we _still_ haven’t gotten anything for anyone.”

“Because you said that buying presents for Ben would be lame,” Andy repeated word-for-word. “I mean, I think so. That sounds right.”

“Yeah! No presents for uncle Nerd,” Robbie exclaims.

“I didn’t… well, Leslie might mad if we only get _her_ presents. Which, by the way–” she flops down where Andy was on a shopping mall bench. “We still haven’t done that, either.”

“Oh, right,” Andy felt some weight leave his arms and he couldn’t have been more thankful.

“Andy…”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I thought you guys were still in–”

“Andy!” This time April’s eyes were huge and she leapt from her spot. 

Looking behind, Jack and Robbie were leading the gaggle of siblings inside of the nearest crappy, Pawnee-based toy store. When April and Andy caught up with them, they had pushed an employee out of the way – simply trying to do his job, but they wanted no part of it – and pulled down a rack of toys.

Which, frankly, was funny for a moment. Then April got a little upset, and if there was anything that kept the kids quiet it was when Mom was angry at their poor behavior.

If they had pushed over, say, any of the number of creepy people that still lived in Pawnee, then it would have been funny. Instead, this was just being cruel to someone they didn’t even know. Half the fun was _knowing_ the target. She never had time to say anything about it, Andy certainly couldn’t scold them for something he’d do likely on accident, because they slipped from their grasp as Andy laughed and gave a half-apology. 

“Look, they’re super crazy,” Andy managed to finally say, biting back a laugh at the very serious manager with Play-Doh somehow uncorked and previously stuck to his face now flaking off already. “Sorry… I mean, uh… yeah, sorry.”

“It was funny when you fell,” April deadpanned.

“And when you got Play-Doh on your face,” Andy finished before coughing awkwardly and leaving the store.

“Okay, now they’re over at that stupid store..”

“Babe, they’re f–”

“Andy…”

Andy was looking at April, who was looking at the direction of that delicious-smelling store. Who just so happened to run over to the pretzel shop Andy’s mouth was watering over earlier. Andy watched from afar as they schemed and as April shoved him lightly to help. Sam stuck close by Robbie, who was trying to use one of the twins to go and beg for a pretzel, pretending to be homeless.

Later, when they learned of it, April thought _that_ was hilarious but still had to keep her parental game face on for the talk. It was a double punishment, because Andy wasn’t allowed to eat one of those pretzels when they explicitly said no pretzels for the kids either.


	229. Why are you so nice to me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been 2 entire months since I've written anything. I feel terrible about that. Hopefully this makes up for it... kinda? Start the new year right! Or something. Jesus, this is awful.
> 
> Requested by meet-me-onthe-equinox on tumblr as the title quote.

In all of the snide remarks, rude hand gestures, and bored sounding groans that Andy hears throughout the week, something never occurred to him. At least, it _hadn’t_ occurred to him _yet_. It hit him while April’s off to grab lunch and he doesn’t bring up until their burgers are half-finished. He makes note of the ketchup speckle at the corner of her lip and Andy isn’t quite sure why.

“Hey so, y’know how you always hang out here?” Andy asks, waiting for a response that comes as a quirked eyebrow. He should know better to not be intentionally stupid -- _crap, already screwed this one up_ \-- but he continues anyways, “Anyways, I know you’re... like, annoyed by people a lot. That’s why you’re so cool and weird--”

“Thank you,” April interjects through a mouthful of burger. 

Andy can’t help but grin and laugh loudly. “See! So I don’t get why you hang out with me.”

“What d’you mean?” April sits back in her chair and Andy chuckles when she belches. Normally, he’d take that as a challenge or give her a high-five but his brain’s working too fast to make his own burp anything but a pipsqueak.

A passerby grimaces at April and Andy realizes that was absolutely the intended effect.

It wasn’t that long ago that the thought of Ann and him in a garish burping contest would have been gross but for some reason, with April, this is different. Maybe it’s the grease, cold coffee, and shoeshine getting to his head, but it’s all so confusing.

“I mean, why’re you so nice to me?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She could answer that truthfully. Yes, April _could_  explain to him that her crush has sunk her so deep that she’s painfully jealous of somebody else over a guy and wishes sometimes that it was easier than this. Sometimes when she goes and hangs out at sleazy dance clubs on a Saturday, April pretends she’s gotten over him and she’ll arrive at work the following week free of _so_ much care for him. Instead, she takes two or three free drinks and leaves under a cloud of anxious worrying in her head over _this stupid shoeshine guy._

But she can’t do that. No way in Hell will anything like that slip past layers and layers of carefully laid foundation. 

_I could just kiss him._

_What a suggestion, brain!_

_Or, maybe, just tell him. Ask him out. It’s still kitschy to ask a guy out for some reason._

“You’re cool... and stuff,” she mumbles through. “Cooler than any of these other weirdos.” She elbows him gently, playfully.

“Oh, yeah?” he asks and April swears there’s just a hint of disappointment there. 

So she decides to add, “Way cooler than Mark was, for sure.”

That earns a proper smile, just like earlier, and her breathing is sharp and difficult around the heat in her chest and the aggressive thudding of her heart.

_So much for ‘forget about him’_


End file.
